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Junot Díaz. The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao. New York. Riverhead. 2007. 340 pages. $24.95. ISBN 978-1-59448-958-7
In his first novel, Junot Díaz writes with the potent style-sarcastic, cynical, terse, and, at just the right moments, sensitive-that made Drown (1997), his first book of short stories, a success. In The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao, Díaz, who was born in the Dominican Republic and grew up in New Jersey, writes a novel of the Americas that follows the fate of one particular family of Dominicans as it transpires in the Caribbean and in Paterson, New Jersey. Throughout the novel Díaz explores history, violence (perpetrated by both the state and individuals), and diaspora while narrating a relentless obsession with sex (or, for poor Oscar Wao, the continual failure to have sex) and the often-stifling inadequacies of love. What makes Oscar himself different, however, and continually victimized...