The other day, Julia McDougall was talking on Twitter about how great The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao is. It’s true! The 2007 novel from Junot Diaz is great.
More recent than that, Diaz released a book of short stories, This Is How You Lose Her. I haven’t had a chance to look at it yet, but I did hear Diaz read one of the stories, “The Cheater’s Guide to Love”, on the American Public Media radio show The Dinner Party.
First, the story is great. While Diaz is as able to get as high-minded as anyone — look to a recent interview at The Millions for some evidence of that — his writing is both brilliant and completely accessible.
Second, Diaz is one of the best at reading his own work. There’s so much life and humour to his writing and he perfectly expresses that. Any author with a live event or an audio book to do could do far worse than studying what Diaz has going on.
