American Dirt

Chapter 8 comprises a series of flashbacks that elaborate on Lydia’s relationships with Sebastián and Javier. The first half of the chapter focuses on interactions between husband and wife. Lydia confesses to Sebastián that she and Javier are friends. Despite Sebastián’s patient explanations, Lydia is blinded by her feelings for the jefe, even questioning her husband’s research: “Is there any chance you’re mistaken?” (67). She makes excuses for Javier to reconcile the man she knows with the violent cartel boss Sebastián describes: “[P]eople are complex and whatever you say he is, he’s also this other person. This tortured, poetic soul, full of remorse. He’s funny. He’s kind” (68-69). She goes on to throw Sebastián’s words back at him to minimize Javier’s culpability: “But you said yourself, just last night, that he, that Los Jardineros, they aren’t as violent as the other cartels” (68).

Despite Lydia’s obvious feelings for Javier, Sebastián remains steadfast in his support of his wife. Lydia, on the other hand, behaves like the heartbroken protagonist in a romance novel. “I know him” (68), she insists when Sebastián warns her that Javier is dangerous. She has deluded herself into thinking conversations in a bookshop make her an authority on the man. She also believes Javier can change his ways, like the imperfect love interest in a romance: “[L]ike you say, he is smart. In a different life he could’ve been someone good […] Maybe things could still be different” (68-69). The subtext is that Javier could change his ways and become the man Lydia wants him to be instead of the man he is. Sebastián’s own blinders finally come down when he asks Lydia if she is in love with Javier.

Lydia and Javier’s confrontation in the second half of the chapter situates the novel firmly in the romance genre. Javier’s bold declaration of love, “I’m in love with you. I am in love with you” (73) is a common trope in romances, as is his flowery attempt to win Lydia over: “[W]hen I’m not with you, I’m lonely for you. You have no idea the light you provide” (73). The conversation takes a melodramatic turn when Javier tells Lydia he would leave the cartel if he could. “Then do!” (73) she responds with a well-timed slap on the counter.

The chapter ends on a dark note that foreshadows the violent turn in Lydia and Javier’s relationship. Cummins peppers the closing paragraph with imagery relating to death. She describes the love between Lydia and Javier as “a ghost in the room, vague and inanimate” (74). Lydia’s disappearing affection for Javier is “gone, leached out, like blood from a cadaver” (74). Last, when the two part ways, Lydia catches “a scent of formaldehyde” (74) and envisions Javier’s glasses “spattered with blood” (74).