In 1996 Junot Diaz published “Drown,” a collection of 10 stories set in New York, New Jersey and the Dominican Republic. What an extraordinary debut it was.
A decade later he finally put out another book. It was worth the wait. In 2007 Diaz published his first novel, “The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao.” It won the Pulitzer Prize and the Dayton Literary Peace Prize. The bright promise of “Drown” was being fulfilled.
Diaz just published “This is How You Lose Her,” a collection of nine stories set mostly in New Jersey and the Dominican Republic. These story collections and the novel have one key character, a man named Yunior, who serves as the point man for the author’s artistic vision.
In the first story in this new collection Yunior is having a rocky relationship with Magda. Yunior decides to embark on a fool’s mission, a trip with Magda to the Dominican Republic. Then things get very weird.
In the next story Yunior observes “that was the summer when everything we would become was hovering just over our heads.” These stories flash back and forth across time. In this one Yunior’s brother is dying.
Yunior is a player, a womanizing deceiver. His various flaws make him utterly compelling. I called Junot Diaz-we talked about Yunior. Diaz explained that “One of the things I think that goes through this book is how Yunior is a writer. He’s practicing fiction in every one of his relationships. But that’s not the real fiction he should be practicing…I think one of the things that happens with people who cheat, I think they become attracted to the lies, living this story, living this persona. They in fact live in a fiction.”
"Battleborn" by Claire Vaye Watkins (Riverhead Books, 288 pages, $25.95)
Claire Vaye Watkins opens her searing debut collection “Battleborn” with a story called “Ghosts, Cowboys.” This atmospheric tale renders convincing historical material regarding nuclear tests in the Nevada desert, the Comstock silver lode and the Manson Family. Or perhaps not.
Watkins grew up in the Death Valley region. She earned an master’s of fine arts at Ohio State. Most of the stories in “Battleborn” are set in the West, primarily in Nevada. According to her biographical information her father was once an associate of Charles Manson.
Call me intrigued. I asked Watkins, “Is this fiction? What is this?”
She replied: “Yes, well I think that’s just the kind of questions the story wants you to be asking. I think probably every really good story that I love leaves you with some version of that feeling: Did this really happen? What’s true here? It feels so real. That’s probably the best compliment I could get: It feels so real.”
“I never want to give up the game, but its definitely a story that’s not being subtle about playing with the line between truth and fact. Or art, and truth.”
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