This Is How You Lose Her

Photo Courtesy of Oprah.com

 

I absolutely love Junot Diaz's prose. This is How You Lose Her is the Dominican author's third book. It is also the third time I've read his work and haven't been able to put it down (check out his books Drown  and The Brief and Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao ).

 

 

This book is a collection of short stories that center around a young Dominican man, and his complicated romantic or familial relationships with the women in his life. As someone with Caribbean heritage, who grew up in a working class family in the New York tri state area (Diaz grew up in New Jersey), I found myself identifying with and laughing at some of his protagonists' thoughts:

 

"While Rafa's hair was straight and glided through a comb like a Caribbean grandparent's dream, my hair still had enough of the African to condemn me to endless combings and out-of-this-world haircuts. My mother cut our hair every month, but this time when she put me in the chair my father told her not to bother." (pg  126)

and

"Only a b&%$h of color comes to Harvard to get pregnant. White women don't do that. Asian women don't do that. Only f&%$king Black and Latina women. Why go to all the trouble to get into Harvard just to get knocked up? You could have stayed on the block and done that s&%t." (pg 198)

But I don't want to suggest that the only people who "get" Diaz are those who are from an island and grew up in the inner city.  I truly think his work is relatable on a universal level, as it is down to earth, honest, and always entertaining. Presently, Diaz is a creative writing professor at MIT. I can only imagine that he's one of those "cool" professors with the fun class.

Are you a Junot Diaz fan? What do you think about his books?

Signing Off,
Nic