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| Drown | 
 enlarge | Author: Junot Diaz
Publisher: Riverhead Trade
Category: Book
List Price: $14.00
Buy New: $7.00
You Save: $7.00 (50%)
New (44) Used (51) from $6.24
Avg. Customer Rating:  79 reviews
Sales Rank: 2735
Media: Paperback
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 224
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.4
Dimensions (in): 7.8 x 5.1 x 0.7
ISBN: 1573226068
Dewey Decimal Number: 813.54
EAN: 9781573226066
ASIN: 1573226068
Publication Date: July 1, 1997
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
Condition: New, Excellent Condition, may have Remainder Mark, Clean Text, Never Been Read, Tight Binding , Immediate Shipping, Email Notification, Professional Service, MILLIONS Served, SATISFACTION GUARANTEED!
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Amazon.com Review
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
A critically acclaimed debut collection of ten cynical and sentimental stories captures the bleakness of life, first in the Dominican Republic and then in New Jersey suburbia, for immigrants of color. Reprint. NYT. "
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| Customer Reviews: Read 74 more reviews...
 a Bukowski rip-off September 29, 2008
I read Drown and liked it. And then I read Bukowski's Ham on Rye. Man... Diaz is a thief.
Quick easy read... September 24, 2008
I wasn't sure what to expect when I ordered this book and was pleasantly surprised by it. Being a "Dominicanphile" I felt it brought much insight from a Dominican's perspective. A very easy and enjoyable read. I finished hoping for more.
If you grew up on the streets, you might find some of these stories redundant August 30, 2008
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.
 Good but NOT Great August 21, 2008
0 out of 1 found this review helpful
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.
 immigrant stories about the American myth July 31, 2008
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
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.
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