It’s the story of Oscar, his extended family both in the United States and the Dominican Republic, and of fukú–the curse that haunts them all.
It’s also a story about the dictator Trujillo, DR culture, the world of the nerd (including video game culture and the realms of science fiction and fantasy writing), love, and loss.
The narrator is Yunior, Oscar’s sister Lola’s on-again-off-again boyfriend, as well as Oscar’s college roommate and ultimately, his best friend. And it is Yunior’s voice that makes the novel so special. He’s funny, self-deprecating, honest, and becomes a window into his culture and the family’s tragic history.
That brings me to the one quibble I have with the novel, and it’s partly my own failing. But there’s a ton of Spanish in the book. Yes, it absolutely makes the narrative voice more authentic and natural given the Dominican background for the story and the characters. But for a non-Spanish-speaking reader, it disrupts the narrative flow by its sheer volume. Sure, I could look up every third line in the novel, but narrative flow… Given that Díaz already made the choice to have the narrator use extensive footnotes to give the reader quite a bit of historical context, why not use the same apparatus to gloss the Spanish? Again, purists are going to slam me because it’s a great book and how dare I suggest a flaw. But I say, why not take care of all your readers, a great many of whom don’t speak Spanish?
For me, that makes it a 4.5-star instead of a 5-star novel. But I would highly recommend it to anyone who enjoys literary fiction. It’s a great read and I will definitely seek out Díaz’s other works.