Over a month ago we mentioned the buzz surrounding the upcoming release of Dominican novelist Junot “Drown” Díaz’s sophomore effort—a science fiction-tinged portrayal of the island’s diaspora in the U.S. called Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao. Reserving judgment and praise, we simply commented on the originality of pairing sci-fi with the Latin staple of “multi-generational family drama.” Since then, the New York Times has released its review of the book, one that (not surprisingly) gushes to no end about the way Díaz switches his lengthy narrative between the travails of an outcast college kid in nowadays New Jersey and the hardships endured as a subject of Dominican dictator Rafael Trujillo. (We figure each scenario poses its own, unique brand of desperation.) The review has replaced our vague intrigue at a structure sans details with the concrete reluctance to embrace a well-defined protagonist:

Oscar, Mr. Díaz’s homely homeboy hero, is “not one of those Dominican cats everybody’s always going on about — he wasn’t no home-run hitter or a fly bachatero, not a playboy” with a million hot girls on the line. No, Oscar is a fat, self-loathing dweeb and aspiring science fiction writer, who dreams of becoming “the Dominican Tolkien.” He’s one of those kids who tremble with fear during gym class and use “a lot of huge-sounding nerd words like indefatigable and ubiquitous” when talking to kids who could barely finish high school. He moons after girls who won’t give him the time of day and enters and leaves college a sad virgin.

Despite the fact that Díaz passes up one cliché (the second-gen Latino brought up in a tough-as-nails American environment) for another here (the tortured genius whose creative gift belies his nerdiness), we can’t bring ourselves to dismiss Oscar. It helps that we’ve never seen a Latino character quite like this before. In the meantime, we’ll try to get a copy sent to us (you hear that, publishers?) and see if there are any passages worthy of praise or ridicule. Stay tuned, kiddies.

A Dominican Comedy: Travails Of An Outcast [NY Times]
Earlier, Junot Díaz Is Back And He Brought His Freak Flag