The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao

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The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao is the first novel from Junot Diaz.  If you’ve read Drown (Diaz’s debut with ten short stories), then you know you’re in for some darkly intense and gritty shit most likely having to do with transplantations of families from Dominican Republic to Jersey.  More often than not, his families are fucked up and the strength of his women put Atlas to shame.

His writing is sparse, haunting and beautiful.  He has mastered the art of evoking highly emotional reactions from his readers (me, at least) with just a few meager lines of lush prose.  Now THAT’s what I call a good ass read.

The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao is all about discovery.  I tagged along on the journeys of Beli the mother, Lola the sister and Oscar the brother.  For a relatively short read, I got to know the characters so very well.  I knew what made them tick, what would piss them off, how they would react and why.  I feel as if I can have a conversation with any of them and would be able to fill in what they would say.  That’s how well Diaz established his family of characters.

Don’t expect this to be 100% dark and depressing.  It’s not.  I laughed out loud and grinned into the book on the F train many a times.  I might have looked like an idiot to some folks, but whenever Diaz made superhero and 80s references, I couldn’t help but chuckle.  I mean, Grod and Grundy dominican thugs…c’mon!  I love Grundy, by the way, he’s got to be one of my favorite characters in DC.  Remember that episode in The Justice League where Grundy saves Hawkgirl’s life, but then in a later episode, she had to use her nth metal mace to kill him to put him out of his misery?  Ugh…heartwrenching…

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A lot of times, Diaz reminded me heavily of Gabriel Garcia Marquez (one of my all time favorite writers for his unlimited imagination) – does that give an idea on the fun factor?  I highly, highly, highly recommend The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao to anybody who reads.  That’s serious.  Read it or beware of the fuku.