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Jeanine Cummins, author of Speak to Me of Home

On her wedding day in San Juan, Puerto Rico, in 1968, Rafaela Acuña y Daubón has mild misgivings, but she marries Peter Brennan Jr. anyway in a blaze of romantic optimism. She has no way of knowing how dramatically her life will change when she uproots her young family to start over in the American Midwest, unleashing a fleet of disappointments. In the 1980s, against the backdrop of her mother’s isolation in St. Louis, Missouri, Rafaela’s daughter, Ruth, wants only to belong. Eager to fit in, Ruth lets go of her language, habits and childhood memories of Puerto Rico. It’s not until decades later when Ruth’s own daughter, Daisy, returns to San Juan that her mother and grandmother begin to truly reflect on the choices that have come to define their lives.

Speak to Me of Home by Jeanine Cummins

May 2025

After reading AMERICAN DIRT, I was looking forward to what Jeanine Cummins would write next. I was so happy to see that she really delivered again with the generational story in SPEAK TO ME OF HOME. I know many people who have migrated to this country, and sometimes I wonder if they are torn between two places. While life here has so many freedoms and opportunities, I have often considered what it is like to think in two languages and think of home as more than one place. It was very much on my mind as I read this book.