Drown by Junot Diaz

Daniel Beaty is a performance poet and artist that talks passionately and personally about issues of race. One of his more well known pieces is titled Duality Duel. In it, Beaty goes back and forth in two different personas; his ivy league educated self and his street self. The two personas are aptly named Nerd and Nigga. The Nerd flourishes stories of success in an attempt to tell the Nigga there is no need for him any longer, but the Nigga fires back that the Nerd is no longer relatable to his people, that he can't fulfill his obligations to lift them up without his Nigga side. The piece is powerful, Beaty has a goosebump evoking delivery from his projection down to his body language. Besides that though, the piece is also smart and accessible all at once. Beaty, using a performance poem that anyone can listen to and engage with, isn't overly poetic on the surface at all, but on further inspection you start to notice rhyme schemes and meter. It's also heavy in content, duality being an altogether difficult subject to reconcile. Artists like Beaty though, are important because, just as his poem states, they make art and complex dialogues more accessible.

This is why Junot Diaz is an important presence in contemporary literature. The experience he comes from is both that of a black minority and an immigrant and he is highly critical of the kind of baggage that comes with both. His novel; the Brief and Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao, which might as well be Duality Duel the book, won the Pulitzer prize for literature. Before that, he published a book of short stories titled Drown. Each story, most of which could very well be about Diaz himself, feature Yunior, Dominican immigrant to New Jersey (see) and seem to dip into different moments of his young and adult life. We get snapshots of him as a child in the DR waiting for his father to send for him; to stories of him as a young man trying to date young women; to stories of him dealing drugs on the corners in America. Aside from two stories, one about Yunior's dad in America and the other about a reoccurring allegorical character named Ysrael, all of these stories take place in "the streets", both literal and metaphoric. This means they come packed with violence, misogyny, bruiting masculinity, race and racism, drugs, gangs, etc etc. This makes it an ideal read for most men who might not often feel a connection with literature set in lofty White America. In fact, it almost seems Drown is exclusively for men, Yunior is always gratingly fronting his manhood (even as a child) and women are unabashedly objectified. That isn't to say that women can't read the work in Drown and derive any sort of meaning, but the book empathizes almost entirely with men.

This could strike a lot of readers as annoying. Fans of Diaz's Oscar Wao who value its balance between "the street" and literary endeavors might not appreciate the more subtle literary presence in Drown, which is more frankly about manhood. This is valid criticism, Drown's male characters are despicable to women, they're overly violent, their thought processes are simplistically male (sex, food, more sex). Other readers though, readers these characters are supposed to empathize with, might find them relevant. Once those readers are hooked, that's when Diaz works in the more complex and subtle elements. Every female character, though treated poorly, is complex, generally strong (often physically), and have an in-depth, multidimensional kindness. Yunior is often afraid to speak out about his run ins with sexual abuse because he thinks he'd be perceived as weak, while he tries to brush it off it is still evident these instances of molestation haunt him (read: drown him). Yunior also seems to be constantly reconciling with the cruelty of masculinity, implying that it is almost inherent in his brand. His father and his brother seem cruel, irresponsible, inconsiderate, and sometimes downright insidious. Yunior, often mirroring their behavior, feels what he is doing is wrong, but also conforms to the pressure of his family and friends. While the stories of Drown may be masked in manliness, beyond the surface there is a delicate and emotional sub-narrative worked subtlety into each piece. 

Of course one could argue subtlety working in complex themes could mean they're willfully ignored or unintentionally unnoticed, thus dampening the conversation they're supposed to provoke in readers who are already hostile to these literary methods. But in Drown, the deep conversation triggers are so haunting - fast escalating moments of intense violence, or sexual molestation that happens excruciatingly slow - that they're impossible to ignore. Diaz stays relevant to say, inner-city youth, but could potentially have them questioning the intricacies of their masculine identities. Even if he doesn't, his attempt at reaching a readership that doesn't usually feel powerful prose is for them is a commendable effort. If nothing else, he is a different voice in a sea of homogeneous voices speaking about tortured white geniuses.