Bookmark: It's OK to be angry about a book. It is not OK to threaten its author

If you are angry about Jeanine Cummins' novel "American Dirt," that is perfectly fine.

If you are one of the people threatening Cummins and threatening booksellers for carrying her book, that is not fine. That is not even close to fine. I don't care how angry you are.

During the two weeks since "American Dirt" was published, the uproar has gotten louder and louder. I think it's tremendous when people are reading books and arguing over books and books are smack in the middle of the cultural conversation.

But it is not OK for Cummins' publisher to have to cancel her book tour out of fear for her safety. Do I have to tell you that's wrong? OK: That's wrong.

There was a lot of buzz around "American Dirt" from the beginning, a novel about a Mexican woman who flees a murdering drug cartel with her son and tries to get to the American border. Will she make it? Will the United States let her in? What could be more timely?

I don't think anyone has said it's high literature — more that it's a gripping page-turner that shines a light on what migrants at our southern border are enduring.

It was named an Oprah book. The book's publisher, Flatiron, set up an extensive tour (including to Excelsior on Feb. 7 — now canceled) and then everything hit the fan.

There were complaints that Cummins relied on stereotypes; that she mangled the Spanish language; that she got basic things wrong; that she appropriated the stories of Mexicans, stole their experiences for her own use.

The anger that "Dirt" has unleashed predates the book and was a long time building, from people who believe that their voices are not heard, that publishers are overwhelmingly white and prefer white writers.

They were angry that Cummins identified as white until it was expedient to identify as Latinx. Angry that she got a huge advance for the book when Mexican writers are struggling to get published at all. Angry that at a book party last spring the table decorations were taken from the jacket of the book — bricks and barbed wire. The anger just built and built.

Perhaps Cummins' book tour should have been canceled because of these problems. Instead, it was canceled because of "specific threats to booksellers and the author," Flatiron publisher Bob Miller said Wednesday in a statement. "We believe there exists real peril to their safety."

This is terrible — chilling, and terrible. Just as chilling: Plenty of people on Twitter do not believe there really were threats but think the publisher is making this up.

Oprah will host a conversation about the book and the response to it in March. Flatiron is planning a series of town hall meetings with Cummins and "some of the groups who have raised objections to this book," Miller said.