Reading Junot Díaz by Christopher González (review)

In Reading Junot Díaz, the first book-length study of the highly-acclaimed Latino author, Christopher González analyzes Díaz's fiction to argue two interrelated yet salient points: just as Díaz's fiction has, in many ways, redefined contemporary Latino literature, González's analytical approach signals a departure from ideologically-oriented scholarship. The four chapters of González's study elucidate the unique literary qualities of Díaz's writing, particularly generic experimentation and the role of character narrators. Although Reading Junot Díaz examines narrative elements, its organization is essentially thematic. The focus on content creates a slight dissonance with the study's proposal to highlight literary analysis as its defining attribute. Instead, Reading Junot Díaz gives equal consideration to formal elements and thematic subjects (5). The introduction presents an engaging discussion of Díaz's place within Latino and American writing and the expanding purview of Latino literature and criticism. The following four chapters are dedicated respectively to Drown (1996); The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao (2007); This is How You Lose Her (2012); and Uncollected Fiction and Nonfiction.

In chapter 1, Drown's stories are reorganized according to shared theme or character. González then examines the multiple roles of the stories' fictional personages and how these, in turn, determine narrative function. The first segment, for example, likens "Ysrael" to "No Face" for their treatment of "shadow fathers" and explores the altered dynamic between three fictional characters. In "Ysrael," the story's namesake is the target of Yunior and Rafa's abuse. Yunior's role as character narrator, however, allows for self-reflection. As such, he recognizes the masculine script of violence that informed the victimization of Ysrael. In "No Face," Yunior's character is marginalized and the story is told in third-person. The absence of Yunior as prominent character narrator in "No Face" cedes greater potential to Ysrael, the protagonist, who is now poised to overcome his disfigurement and identifies as superhero.

Chapter 2 focuses on character narrators, African páginas en blanco, and the incorporation of speculative genres, such as fantastic literature and science fiction, in The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao. Yunior becomes more complex in Díaz's second published work as he adopts an authorial persona. The creation of Yunior, a fictive Afro-Dominican author, who writes the personal history of another fictive Afro-Dominican aspiring author, Oscar de León, not only redresses the erasure of Africans in Dominican history and culture; it also reconfigures other depictions of Afro-Latinidad, such as Piri Thomas's self-portrayal in Down These Mean Streets (58). Multidimensionality carries over to the novel's engagement with comics and fantasy novels. The intertextual references to The Lord of the Rings, for example, reflects both Oscar's desire to become a Dominican Tolkien and the novel's structure as apocalyptic text. González convincingly demonstrates how Tolkien's concept of "eucatastrophe," or a "deep structure of hope," arises in opposition to the fukú curse (82-86).

Chapter 3 examines the complexity of Yunior's emotional development in This is How You Lose Her. González reiterates that reading select stories in tandem puts Yunior in relief; his role as character narrator in "Nilda," "The Pura Principle," and "Miss Lora," for example, yields greater self-awareness. Yunior's absence from stories, however, also sheds light on his trajectory from boyhood to adult. "Otra Vez, Otra Vida" and "Invierno" are about Yunior's father, Ramón. The first focuses on Ramón's affair with Yasmin, while the second portrays the strained interactions between father and son. Despite Yunior's relatively limited presence in the stories, both intimate how Ramón's behavior has shaped Yunior's relationships with women.

In chapter 4, González provides critical glosses of "Monstro" and eleven texts of nonfiction published between 1999 and 2004. According to González, "Monstro," an excerpt from Díaz's novel in progress, "recasts the historical...