A few days ago I watched a book haul by one of my favourite book-tubers, TheReadingRhodes. He mentioned this book, The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao by Junot Diaz. Intrigued by his description of it, I acquired a copy yesterday and read most of the book last night and this afternoon.
The book alternates between a setting in the United States and one in the Dominican Republic, switching between a 1970-1980s setting and previous decades. The story is of an overweight writer-nerd and his troubled family. Oscar struggles with finding both happiness and love in his life. He is socially awkward and a loner who sometimes struggles with depression.
Interestingly, both readers and characters must come to terms with the idea of what is referred to as fukú, a curse which seems to follow a family from generation to generation. The younger generations are skeptical of the existence of the curse, but as readers discover, that changes.
Diaz's book is a fascinating mixture of fiction, with just a touch of fact. Like all good "literary works"( I should note that I use "literary" as a flexible genre term due to its lack of solid definition) it tackles a variety of issues, like love, sex, loneliness and evolving cultures.
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