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I was lucky enough to have seen Junot Diaz read, and that cabròn was hilarious! His talk was fresh, lewd, direct, sly, sweet, and honest. Exactly like his writing. He spoke of how Hip Hop had informed his life and work, and how a writer must use experience to shape their art; auto-biography and fiction helix together. His street talk and easy manner reminded me of the slick Mexican kids I grew up with(with due respect for the differences in Latino cultures). No amount of vernacular speech could front on the fact that he’s an insightful and sensitive academic however, which is again mirrored in his writing.

“Drown� depicts poverty and struggle in a matter of fact way. It doesn’t inspire pity or admiration, it’s neither saccharine nor acrid; but there are moments of each of these things.To be able to describe finding a pair of jeans with the pockets turned out in a search for whatever by an addict semi-exgirlfriend, and making it sound sort of cute is masterful. The leaky-roofed, chronically hungry, parasite infested childhood sounds almost fun, but yet, you can tell that it isn’t. The strangest combination of flavors in the book is the pride/respect/disdain that is held for a father that abandoned his family in the DR for years while farting around up in the US. Because of the archetypical nature of these stories it felt like a wild biography, and I had to remind myself that they were only stories.

His writing style, once again very much like his speech, was clear and easy, if a little unconventional, and I had to backpedal here or there to get the gist. Mostly though it flowed so smoothly I was done with it before I realized. A great read.