Drown

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Author: Junot Diaz
Publisher: Riverhead
Category: EBooks

List Price: ~~$14.00~~
Buy New: $9.99
You Save: $4.01 (29%)

Rating:

77 reviews
Sales Rank: 407

Format: Kindle Book
Media: Kindle Edition
Pages: 208
Number Of Items: 1

Dewey Decimal Number: 813.54
ASIN: B000QUEHOY

Publication Date: May 16, 2007
Availability: Usually ships in 24 hours

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Editorial Reviews:

Amazon.com
With ten stories that move from the barrios of the Dominican Republic to the struggling urban communities of New Jersey, Junot Diaz makes his remarkable debut. Diaz's work is unflinching and strong, and these stories crackle with an electric sense of discovery. Diaz evokes a world in which fathers are gone, mothers fight with grim determination for their families and themselves, and the next generation inherits the casual cruelty, devestating ambivalence, and knowing humor of lives circumscribed by poverty and uncertainty. In Drown, Diaz has harnessed the rhythms of anger and release, frustration and joy, to indelible effect.

Product Description
With ten stories that move from the barrios of the Dominican Republic to the struggling urban communities of New Jersey, Junot Diaz makes his remarkable debut. Diaz's work is unflinching and strong, and these stories crackle with an electric sense of discovery. Diaz evokes a world in which fathers are gone, mothers fight with grim determination for their families and themselves, and the next generation inherits the casual cruelty, devestating ambivalence, and knowing humor of lives circumscribed by poverty and uncertainty. In Drown, Diaz has harnessed the rhythms of anger and release, frustration and joy, to indelible effect.

Customer Reviews: Read 72 more reviews...

4 out of 5 stars

If you grew up on the streets, you might find some of these stories redundant August 30, 2008
JackOfMostTrades (Washington, DC)
1 out of 1 found this review helpful

Junot Diaz is a good writer. Reading these stories is better than watching some dumb TV show depicting growing up the hard way. But for those of us who did grow up poor or with single mothers or with a bunch of deliquent friends, I just don't see this book as something to celebrate. Could it be that 'literary readers' are all from the middle class and find depiction of street life revelatory? I had the same experiences growing up on the streets of Brooklyn and didn't find the expression or situations in these stories much different than what one of my friends and I might talk about during our formative years--to whit xyz jumped off the roof last night, or zyx overdosed on heroin. I don't see the fascination about a world where these events are routine. For those who read this book to get an insight into how the 'other half' lives, I suggest going out and living that life for a while. This book might be good ethnography, but it's not great literature. I wonder if the people who run M.F.A. programs go scouring for writers who have experiences like the author's since it's such a departure from their own world. This way of idealizing this sort of material reminds me of the appeal of the photography of Diane Arbus. Her images are fascinating for the 'normal' middle class experience, but if you grew up with the people whom she depicts--like I did--you probably know uneducated, marginal, struggling people are not all that fascinating. BTW, it's odd how the English version of these stories, Drown, was translated into Spanish by someone other than the author, an named 'Negocios'--from a different short story title in the collection. That Junot Diaz doesn't translate his own work that was originally written in English is kind of odd.

3 out of 5 stars

Good but NOT Great August 21, 2008
Missy (Gaithersburg, MD)
In my opinion Junot Diaz is a good writer. I found the book to be a good read, but NOT a great read. I was expecting so much more. I feel that so many main parts were left out, like how did they finally get to the states? It jumped back and forth too much. However, there were a lot of funny and interesting parts in the book. My favorite chapter was Drown.

5 out of 5 stars

immigrant stories about the American myth July 31, 2008
Frank L. Greenagel Jr. (New Brunswick, NJ)
This is the first book by the 2008 Pulitzer-winning author of "The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao." It's a collection of short stories that are set between the 1970's and 1990's in the Dominican Republic, the Bronx and in a variety of Northern NJ towns.

In "Ysrael," two brothers walk to another town in the DR to see a boy who wore a mask (because his face had been eaten off by a pig when he was a baby).

"Fiesta, 1980" is about a party in the Bronx that Yunior, the narrator in several stories in this book and the primary narrator in Oscar Wao, and his family attend. In describing his aunt's place, Yunior says that it had "been furnished in Contemporary Dominican Tacky" (pg. 32).

In "Aurora," a small-time drug dealer tells the story of his relationship with a female heroin addict. "We all do s*#@ like this, stuff that's no good for you," he says (pg. 50).

"Edison, New Jersey" is a story about two pool-table deliverymen. Wayne is in his late 30's or early 40's. His partner describes him as "a big goofy guy - I don't understand why the girls dig his s*#@. One of those mysteries of the universe" (pg. 125). They deliver the tables and work in the showroom as the narrator relates the story of his recent break-up: "We stopped playing only when it started to go wrong for us, when I'd wake up and listen to the traffic outside without waking her, when everything was a fight" (pg. 132).

"Negocios" is the story of Ramon, who moves to America in the 1960's, leaving his wife and children behind him with the promise that he'll bring them over when he makes enough money. It's narrated by his youngest son, Yunior, who describes his father as "real good at planning and real bad at doing" (pg. 196). Ramon's story is one of hard work and occasional bad luck. Eventually, he marries a citizen in order to become a citizen himself, and he struggles with the guilt about his family that is still in the DR. The story ends with Yunior having a conversation many years later with Ramon's second wife.

Diaz's stories are filled with hard realization that the American dream for most immigrants is really an American myth - many more stumble along than succeed. NJ is a bleak place for these characters and their generational stories.

1 out of 5 stars

Carolos Mencia? June 3, 2008
Yelena Y. Grinberg (New York)
6 out of 11 found this review helpful

This book came highly recommended by an avid reader and author whom I greatly respect. We share the same passion for Tim O'Brien, Kurt Vonnegut, Chuck Palahniuk, Jack Kerouac, etc etc...

This is the worst thing I've ever read in my life. This "honest" "boldness" comes off cheesy and repetitive. This reads like Carlos Mencia re-writing John Leguizamo's first HBO special. This is infuriatingly bad.

I can't believe this drivel has such great reviews! I also don't see how sprinkling Spanish words among 5 sentences is anything creative or honest. There is no intelligence behind these words - just a regular story.

I get it - he had a tough life. Wow. Refreshing.

I can see him sitting down one night "Ay esse... I had a tough layhf, lemme write about eeeeeet"

Shut up.

2 out of 5 stars

Well written but not engaging to me June 3, 2008
Jason Buberel (Sunnyvale, CA USA)
1 out of 2 found this review helpful

Although I greatly enjoyed The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao, I was never able to get excited about Drown. It may be due to the fact that the main characters were so unsympathetic - in several instances their actions made we want to shout at them in anger and frustration. The book is well written, but somehow failed to draw me in as a reader.