Over the past four years, images of refugees braving the US southern border have exploded into political conflict. But for Jeanine Cummins, those images are not political, they are the faces of men and women willing to sacrifice everything for a glimmer of hope.

Now, Cummins has stitched them together into the poignantly compelling novel American Dirt, the story of a middle-class Mexican woman and her son transformed into migrants, a family — like so many refugees before them – who understand what they are running from without knowing precisely what they are running to.

Jeanine Cummins is the author of three prior novels and a bestselling memoir. This latest book was a New York Times #1 bestseller and an Oprah Book Club pick.