Simultaneously funny and heartbreaking, sexy and disturbing, utterly compelling and unforgettable, this much anticipated 2007 novel by writer Junot Díaz has received much (deserved) acclaim. As the year closes, it will be near the top of most “best books of the year” lists.
The novel centers around the survivors of a Domincan family in urban New Jersey, living with the fukú (curse). Tireless Belicia De Léon struggles with cancer and supporting her children, adolescent outcasts Lola and Oscar during the eighties and nineties. After she’s raped by neighbor, Lola becomes a punk and runaways until she is sent away to Santo Domingo. Virtually friendless, Oscar retreats into science fiction, fantasy, manga, role playing games and obesity. Oscar awkwardly seeks true love approaching any girl who crosses his path only to become the ultimate failure, a Dominican male who can’t get a woman.
Lola’s sometime boyfriend and Oscar’s sometime roommate, Yunior narrates(except for one section by Lola) the family’s saga. Yunior’s unique voice combines Dominican Spanish, urban Jersey slang, humanities grad school jargon, intimate knowledge of the speculative genres, with humor and machismo.(Yunior may or may not be the character with the same name featured in Díaz’s short story collection Drown.) It would be virtually impossible for any reader to catch all the references, nor are they expected to. Familiar with Mexican Spanish, I learned a lot of Dominican slang from context.
As an omniscient narrator, Yunior recounts the family’s history in the Dominican Republic under the Trujillato regime, that realistically would be unknown to him or the De Léons. The violence, political and sexual, faced by the family mirrors the suffering of the Dominican Republic imposed by Trujillo and his patron, the United States. Many footnotes inform the reader of the history of the DR, the most science fiction nation according to Yunior.
Aside from the fukú and a golden mongoose the book is very light on the magical realism stereotypically associated with Latin literature. Obviously its not a novel to set the mood for a Punto Cana golf vacation or learn the quaint picaresque customs of island people. It does bring attention to yet another overlooked, disgraceful period in the United States relations with its Southern neighbors. Ultimately the book is about real relationships and the human capacity for both compassion and violence.
