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<a href="http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/531989.Drown?utm_medium=api&amp;utm_source=blog_review" style="float: left; padding-right: 20px"><img alt="Drown" border="0" src="http://s3.amazonaws.com/photo.goodreads.com/books/1175573944m/531989.gif" /></a> <a href="http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/531989.Drown?utm_medium=api&utm_source=blog_review">Drown</a> by <a href="http://www.goodreads.com/author/show/55215.Junot_D_az">Junot Díaz</a><br/><br/>
  <a href="http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/14381046?utm_medium=api&utm_source=blog_review"><h3>My review</h3></a>
  rating: 4 of 5 stars<br/>As when you're listening to some old piece of music you never thought much of, it could be a long ago seemingly throwaway pop dance number like This Old Heart of Mine by the Isley Brothers, or some slyer more college-degreed album track like let's say Listening Wind by Talking Heads, and you suddenly jump up and think but - but really, this is a masterpiece! - it's not just another painting-by-numbers from Motown, it's not just another sneery too-clever construction you skip while you're trying to find the one where David Byrne goes "And you may find yourself in a beautiful house! With a beautiful wife! And you may say to yourself How Did I Get Here?", Juno Diaz' tales from the front line of squalour and immigration aren't just another vicarious thrillseeking tour of Poverty and Ignorance Hell, not just another wound-baring stigmata-showing howl from yet more people from the abyss. They're that too, just like This Old Heart of Mine is a great dance number, but there's this thing called an authentic voice, or whatever the term is, which is the exact opposite of His Master's Voice (which was a record label and a painting). It's where no one but this particular author would know how to describe this person or that circumstance, this pain or that crime, the particular inside the generic. 
<br/>   The best story is the last and longest, but only because of what went before. Gloomily overhanging the earlier tales of kids trying to grow up in the Dominican Republic is the father who left for America, who never came back, and who stopped sending money, and who never sent for his family to join him. What a shit! We get used to the banal outrage of not knowing what this useless fool did when he got there, what was his big fat excuse, how could he abandon his wife and kids, etc etc so that there's a real frisson when we discover that the last 47 pages will answer all these questions, and in a great reversal of perspective, you find yourself looking out of this bad man's face, sleeping in his cockroach rooms and working his 16 hour shifts.
<br/>   Great stuff, and not one wasted word. 
  <br/><br/><a href="http://www.goodreads.com/review/list/416390?utm_medium=api&utm_source=blog_review">View all my reviews.</a>

Paul's review
rating:
bookshelves: short-stories

As when you're listening to some old piece of music you never thought much of, it could be a long ago seemingly throwaway pop dance number like This Old Heart of Mine by the Isley Brothers, or some slyer more college-degreed album track like let's say Listening Wind by Talking Heads, and you suddenly jump up and think but - but really, this is a masterpiece! - it's not just another painting-by-numbers from Motown, it's not just another sneery too-clever construction you skip while you're trying to find the one where David Byrne goes "And you may find yourself in a beautiful house! With a beautiful wife! And you may say to yourself How Did I Get Here?", Juno Diaz' tales from the front line of squalour and immigration aren't just another vicarious thrillseeking tour of Poverty and Ignorance Hell, not just another wound-baring stigmata-showing howl from yet more people from the abyss. They're that too, just like This Old Heart of Mine is a great dance number, but there's this th...more As when you're listening to some old piece of music you never thought much of, it could be a long ago seemingly throwaway pop dance number like This Old Heart of Mine by the Isley Brothers, or some slyer more college-degreed album track like let's say Listening Wind by Talking Heads, and you suddenly jump up and think but - but really, this is a masterpiece! - it's not just another painting-by-numbers from Motown, it's not just another sneery too-clever construction you skip while you're trying to find the one where David Byrne goes "And you may find yourself in a beautiful house! With a beautiful wife! And you may say to yourself How Did I Get Here?", Juno Diaz' tales from the front line of squalour and immigration aren't just another vicarious thrillseeking tour of Poverty and Ignorance Hell, not just another wound-baring stigmata-showing howl from yet more people from the abyss. They're that too, just like This Old Heart of Mine is a great dance number, but there's this thing called an authentic voice, or whatever the term is, which is the exact opposite of His Master's Voice (which was a record label and a painting). It's where no one but this particular author would know how to describe this person or that circumstance, this pain or that crime, the particular inside the generic.
The best story is the last and longest, but only because of what went before. Gloomily overhanging the earlier tales of kids trying to grow up in the Dominican Republic is the father who left for America, who never came back, and who stopped sending money, and who never sent for his family to join him. What a shit! We get used to the banal outrage of not knowing what this useless fool did when he got there, what was his big fat excuse, how could he abandon his wife and kids, etc etc so that there's a real frisson when we discover that the last 47 pages will answer all these questions, and in a great reversal of perspective, you find yourself looking out of this bad man's face, sleeping in his cockroach rooms and working his 16 hour shifts.
Great stuff, and not one wasted word. ...less

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message 1: by J

05/01/2008 04:07AM

Great review, Paul.