Allen ( received his MFA in Creative Writing and Literature from SUNY Stony Brook.

I don’t think one would be disappointed if time is taken to read Drown. His writing has encouraged me to just go for it when describing situations as natural as I would chat with friends. I’m reminded of childhood Dominican friends I grew up around who would naturally switch between English and Spanish. An eerie occurrence that left Junior frozen and me shaking my head.īut without a doubt the language in Drown is Dominican. In the book’s titled chapter “Drown” Junior described the two times his best-friend-drug-selling-partner had molested him. I found myself laughing at moments and then taken aback by other scenes. But the story pivots from Junior’s admiration of his brother sway over girls once they team up to jump and unmask Ysrael, a Dominican kid around their age whose face was eaten by a pig. The reader is engulfed in the relationship between Junior and his big brother, Rafa. “Ysrael” lands somewhere in the muddy middle of taste. My least favorite short story was “How to date a Brown girl, Black girl, white girl, or Halfie.” This one felt unfinished and didn’t quite deliver from the buildup of Junior preparing for a date that never happened when it finally occurred. Instead of Ramon establishing himself then bringing his family over to the states he starts a new life marrying another woman and having additional children. Beyond the language barrier and culture struggle, one could expect the reader witnesses what happens to a flawed man who abandons his wife (whose father gave Ramon the money to buy a ticket to the United States) and kids in the Dominican Republic. My favorite was “Negocios.” It was about the protagonist Junior’s father Ramon coming as a new immigrant to the United States. But in Drown, I found myself consistently asking, how much of these stories are based on Diaz’s personal experience?ĭrown has 10 short stories in this collection. His Dominican perspective, flawed characters and descriptive images written in short strokes of the pen are as prevalent in Drown, his 1 st published book as his other two. Reading Drown has completed my trifecta of all of Junot Diaz’s published books.

Drown by junot diaz chapter summary