Jeanine Cummins · 2020 · survival

Jeanine Cummins's 2020 novel. When a cartel massacres her family in Acapulco, the bookseller Lydia flees north with her young son, joining the desperate migrant stream toward the United States. From Mexico City and Guadalajara they ride atop the freight train La Bestia through Culiacán to the border at Nogales, hunted the whole way, risking everything for the crossing at Tucson.

1. 1
   Acapulco

   Lydia's comfortable life as a bookseller ends when a cartel guns down sixteen of her family; she and eight-year-old Luca alone survive and flee.

2. 2
   Mexico City

   Smuggled to the capital in a church van, they find they cannot fly north without papers and must join the migrant trail.

3. 3
   Guadalajara

   Riding atop La Bestia, the notorious freight trains, they press on with the Honduran sisters Soledad and Rebeca.

4. 4
   Culiacan

   Deep in cartel country, the group waits days for a safe train north through Sinaloa.

5. 5
   Nogales

   At the border city, the razor wire of el norte in sight, Lydia empties her mother's account to pay a coyote.

6. 6
   Tucson

   After a punishing trek across the Sonoran desert, they cross at last onto American dirt, bound for Denver.