The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao

There is a moment early in The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao, when the title character looks in the mirror and really sees what he is, what he looks like and why he can't get laid. "The fat! The layers of stretch marks!" Oscar's revulsion is a typical display of his habitual self-hatred and despair. His love of all things nerdy and his undying romanticism lead him to suicidal thoughts, Goth chicks, family curses and Santo Domingo. It would be easy, then, to assume that the novel is simply an ill-fated adolescent tale of a fat Jersey boy for whom we should feel sorry. Except that the author is Junot Díaz, and in his writing the distance between Third World and First World shrinks, tragedy is humor, and language is both seducer and weapon.

Like his highly acclaimed short story collection Drown, this novel, his first, exhibits Díaz's mastery of language. Not just Spanish and English, but beautiful, staccato bursts of passionate slang and nasty curse words. Describing Oscar: "You really want to know what being an X-Man feels like? Just be a smart bookish boy of color in a contemporary US ghetto. Mamma mia! Like having bat wings or a pair of tentacles growing out of your chest." Other similarities to Drown are hard to miss in this book. The Dominican Republic is not so much a setting as it is a major character, one who loses loved ones as they flee to the US, but calls them back every summer. Yunior, the narrator of the novel, is also a central character in Drown. Though it is unclear if it is the same Yunior, the swagger and the voice are familiar. And once again the streets of New Jersey are filled with the smell of Dominican suppers and trash-talking maldito hombres. Reading Oscar Wao 11 years after Drown is like getting a letter from a hilarious, dyspeptic friend years after you have last heard from him. And this is one hell of a letter. This novel finishes what Drown started: an extended, complex familial narrative that inculcates doubt in the grand narratives Americans have grown up believing. To accomplish this, Díaz weaves an absorbing story with the history of the people and politics of the Americas.

Using footnotes, Díaz gives us the history of colonial violence and the bloody world of US-backed dictator Rafael Trujillo," also known as El Jefe, the Failed Cattle Thief, and Fuckface," who ruled the Dominican Republic for 31 years. Unlike the footnotes most of us are used to in history texts, these are fast, hot and personal, in the voice of Yunior. Yunior knows the dorkiest of sci-fi and Marvel comic book references; "My shout-out to Jack Kirby aside, it's hard as a Third-Worlder not to feel an affinity with Uatu the Watcher." But he also quotes the post-colonial theorist Edouard Glissant, gives sweat-drenched details of the bedrooms and backseats of government officials and explains the fuku. This curse is linked to the rotten luck of Oscar's family, Trujillo and even the Kennedy clan. Though the book is based on Oscar and his undeniable romanticism, the themes of family, alienation and violence underwrite every action. Because of this, the plot intertwines past and present, Middle Earth and the Third World, the fantastic and brutal reality.

Oscar's mother, Beli, came to the US from Santo Domingo after running afoul of her gangster lover's wife, Trujillo's sister. Beaten and left for dead in a cane field, Beli is the victim of a fuku that destroyed her entire family and forced her to leave for New Jersey, where she had Oscar and his sister Lola. Beli's history is Oscar's present: her violent past and accursed romance are eerily replayed when Oscar moves to the Dominican Republic. Rather than seeming simple or didactic, this overlap in narrative is what makes it so engaging. Díaz never gives us simple answers to the questions in the novel. How could he? His subject matter stretches back to Columbus (referred to as The Admiral) and cuts a dizzying swath through contemporary pop culture.

In a radio interview with The Progressive, Díaz claims that "Oscar is the opposite of the masculine dream of the DR, alien even in his own community." By making Tolkien-loving Oscar our luckless protagonist, Díaz allows the reader to see inside the culture while remaining outside it. Though Yunior may be the Watcher, Oscar is the perfect guide: romantic, hapless and utterly innocent. His obsession with fantasy and sci-fi creates a perfect analogy to both the political situation and to his own valorous search for himself: a Jedi battling the evil empire. Though sometimes funny, the analogy never seems trite or forced.

Oscar's story is easy to get lost in, but Díaz's footnotes ensure that the reader is also aware of the political implications to every plot twist. Where Oscar searches for love and history, the reader confronts colonialism. When Oscar struggles to establish his identity, the reader encounters poverty and Diaspora. As the plot progresses and Oscar's family history clarifies, our political amnesia dissipates. US occupation in Latin America, political intrigue, genocide and geographic struggles are all tied into the gripping plot. Lola claims, "10 million Trujillos is what we are" and it's hard to disagree, though it is uncomfortable to consider. The political and the personal are intertwined in this novel, and it is impossible to ignore the facts when the story is so compelling.

In the same interview with The Progressive, Díaz claims that dictators are great storytellers: their narratives are compelling and easy to believe. This novel is hard to put down and it moves fast. The work comes from trying to keep up with Díaz as he questions history and leads us through a linguistic wonderland. It's full of chaos and humor, and never succumbs to a tidy, happy ending — well worth the eleven-year wait.