It’s an interesting point in Yunior’s life because he’s making bad decisions all over the place. Along with his friend/co-worker named Cut, Yunior has made a steady living dealing drugs in New Jersey. “Aurora” comes at a point when Yunior seems to be in high-school or possibly older. With Yunior, Diaz has created a character who may not be likeable, but has arguably redeemed himself by telling us the stories in the first place. It’s critical to discuss Yunior because he is always present in both Drown and TBWLOW. In his defense, Yunior does seem to mature later, but his early life is rife with abuse perpetrated by and against him. He spends the majority of his time womanizing to build up his fragile ego. The narrator’s name is Yunior and for lack of a better term, he’s a douche.
When you can keep something the same in multiple stories, this lessens the amount of work for the writer. As a part-time writer of fiction, this makes sense to me as it maintains a common thread throughout multiple books. Most authors I’m familiar with switch narrators frequently, while Diaz is content to keep the same narrator.
The same narrator is present in both Drown and TBWLOW, making the two works feel like companions to each other. His stories exhibit the same kind of voice and style present in his longer work. After finishing the first four stories in Drown, I can safely say that the literary quality of Diaz’s short fiction is on par with TBWLOW. Since I originally created this blog to review short fiction, I hope to continue this for as long as possible. While I could talk for hours about The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao, this post will focus on Diaz’s short story “Aurora” in the collection Drown. It’s an incredible achievement that I hope will stand the test of time.
It’s hard to imagine Diaz topping this novel anytime soon. Anyone interested in sci-fi, adulthood, Latin-american literature, or book in general will greatly enjoy this book. The novel deals with a number of themes, ranging from the construction of gender to how Diaspora can change someone’s life. Oscar is obsessed with Science Fiction, fantasy, and anything that provides an escape from the depressingly awful circumstances of his life. The story focuses primarily on Oscar Wao, an overweight ghetto nerd living in Paterson, New Jersey. I recently read The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao for the second time and was absolutely floored by its narrative complexity and emotional resonance.
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