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Drown
Junot Diaz. Riverhead Books: 1997 (paperback). ISBN: 1573226068. 208 pages.
Guide not available
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Diaz's work is interesting to read with Edwidge Danticat's Krik? Krak!
as his main characters are from the other side of that war-torn island, the Dominican Republic, and are also immigrants to
the United States. This literary debut is also a collection of short stories, but short stories that are about the same
people and so form a sort of novel, much like Louise Erdrich's first book, Love Medicine, did. As the setting shifts
from jungle to concrete jungle (in this case , urban New Jersey), you may become aware that Diaz has it all--the faultless
ear for dialogue, the sharp eye of the impartial observer, the natural sense of the perfect balance between lyricism and
restraint. But his stories are so engaging, so exciting and interesting to read, that it's equally probable you'll read too
fast to worry about his technique. Diaz captures the essence of so many cultural edges--especially those formed by race,
immigration, and urban/suburban sprawl--but he never allows either his narrators or his characters to drown in self-pity.
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