American Dirt

Throughout their journey to the United States, Lydia and Luca struggle to reconcile the beauty that they see with the trauma of the experience. Cummins positions this dilemma as situational irony, as the beauty is in conflict with their trauma. In Chapter 15, she writes: 

It’s overwhelming, to be in a beautiful, festive place like this. Lydia is overcome by guilt. Because it feels incongruous and seductive and wrong to witness the simple charm of a pretty place. She can see that same kind of notion land across Luca’s features, and she reaches for his hand. His mind does his awful thing to remind him not to be enchanted: it floods him with the helpful memory of all his dead family […]. Everyone gone. Luca is gone with them for a moment […].

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