Drown

Written by Junot Díaz

Narrated by Jonathan Davis

A collection of eleven stories by a young writer evoke his hard-fought youth in the barrios of the Dominican Republic and the bleak urban landscapes of New Jersey, combining a journalist's dispassionate eye with an ear for poetry.

"This stunning collection of stories offers an unsentimental glimpse of life among the immigrants from the Dominican Republic--and other front-line reports on the ambivalent promise of the American dream--by an eloquent and original writer who describes more than physical dislocation in conveying the price that is paid for leaving culture and homeland behind." --San Francisco Chronicle.

Junot Diaz's stories are as vibrant, tough, unexotic, and beautiful as their settings - Santa Domingo, Dominican Neuva York, the immigrant neighborhoods of industrial New Jersey with their gorgeously polluted skyscapes. Places and voices new to our literature yet classically American: coming-of-age stories full of wild humor, intelligence, rage, and piercing tenderness. And this is just the beginning. Diaz is going to be a giant of American prose. --Francisco Goldman

Ever since Diaz began publishing short stories in venues as prestigious as The New Yorker, he has been touted as a major new talent, and his debut collection affirms this claim. Born and raised in Santo Domingo, Diaz uses the contrast between his island homeland and life in New York City and New Jersey as a fulcrum for his trenchant tales. His young male narrators are teetering into precarious adolescence. For these sons of harsh or absent fathers and bone-weary, stoic mothers, life is an unrelenting hustle. In Santo Domingo, they are sent to stay with relatives when the food runs out at home; in the States, shoplifting and drugdealing supply material necessities and a bit of a thrill in an otherwise exhausting and frustrating existence. There is little affection, sex is destructive, conversation strained, and even the brilliant beauty of a sunset is tainted, its colors the product of pollutants. Keep your eye on Diaz; his first novel is on the way. --Booklist

• Language: English
• Publisher: Penguin Audio
• Release date: Sep 6, 2007
• ISBN: 9781101029374

Junot Díaz

Junot Díaz nació en Santo Domingo (República Dominicana) en 1968. A los seis años de edad se mudó con sus padres a Nueva Jersey. Se licenció en la Rutgers University e hizo un máster en bellas artes en la Cornell University. Actualmente imparte escritura creativa en el Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Su primer libro,Drown (1996), es una colección de diez cuentos que fue traducida al español bajo el título Los boys y que trata sobre la vida urbana de los dominicano-estadounidenses en las urbes de Estados Unidos. Su primera novela, La maravillosa vida breve de Óscar Wao (2007), fue galardonada con el Premio Pulitzer 2008 y el National Books Critics Circle Award. En 2012 publicó el libro de relatos Así es como la pierdes.

Reviews for Drown

[wanderlustlover_1 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

Summer 2021 (July);

Another recommended pick-up from my APSI summer class, and another drilling down into the lives of persons of color.

This one started so well worded by pointing out 'The fact that I am writing to you in English already falsifies what I wanted to tell you.' It was such a chillingly beautiful thing to see so clearly put forward. That the stories were already displaced by being put in the wrong language, same as the life lived and spoken in it. Already we being in a liminal space between language, cultures, and states of being.

This piece did so well at showing us the complicated network of the feelings and thought in multifaceted cultural interactions here. Sorrow and joy always mingled and sullied just slightly by the balance it had to hold itself in. This is a good eye-opener and reminder of those experiences being had around us, that they deserve the same respect and compassion as our own always.

[mojomomma_1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

These short stories capture Yunior's early life in the DR, his relationship with his older brother and his mother and his lack of a relationship with his absent father, who was already in Nuevo York. Sad, poignant, but still funny in places.

[mkfs-354306 · Rating: 1 out of 5 stars]

I didn't care for it.

This book seems to appeal to two audiences: those who identify with the characters, and those who find novelty in the experiences.

There is nothing wrong with this, but if you're not someone who enjoys the stories' resemblance to your own life, and you've experienced enough that the situations in these stories are not new or even unique, then the book doesn't offer much else.

The characters are unremarkable, and the stories themselves are rather pointless (not showing any particular insight, character development, etc). Reading Drown was like reading someone's journal: unless you are interested in the person themselves, it's just not all that interesting.

[nivramkoorb · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Diaz does a great job on giving you the feel for the Dominican immigrant experience. Although this is a story collection, it feels like a novel because it deals with the same characters as it bounces through different time frames and locals. Some in the Dominican Republic and some in New Jersey/NYC. His prose is great but sometimes you don't always have a feel for the characters, but what you do get is how difficult life can be for so many and especially for immigrants who don't speak the language. Our country is not always that welcoming but people still want to come here. This is a worthwhile read to get some insight into parts of life for which I have no personal experience. He has written 3 books and they are all excellent with one winning the Pulitzer prize. Still waiting for something new from him.

[JavierGV · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

“Drown” or “Negocios,” as the Spanish translation is titled, is a deeply personal collection of stories that moves with its reality and rawness. The stories intertwine to give us a view of poverty in the Dominican Republic; of the American dream (which could well be that of all of Latin America) and the transition between the two with a brave and confessional backdrop. This is a disguised novel. (Translated from Spanish)

[oacevedo-792047 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

I enjoyed immersing myself in the waters of Drown. An emotional collection of stories, one can surmise they are at least partly based on Diaz's personal experiences. The stories explore often ignored themes of masculinity, male friendship, and (most importantly) father-son relationships. In fact, there is a Kafka-esque search to comprehend a father's identity and actions. It is not an easy task with a father who is emotionally and, for a large part, physically distant. Women are present, of course, but usually found in beleaguered and lamentable circumstances. They are deficient in money and in the love that they seem to deserve. The young male protagonists want to be exceptional men to their female lovers, but suspect that inevitably they too will become neglectful. No one is safe from emotional turmoil in Diaz's stories. The struggles are private, familial and cultural---not individual but all interconnected. Isn't this always the case?

[mjspear_1 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Brilliant prose with not always likeable people and even the sympathetic characters engage in marginal behavior (drugs, etc.). Nonetheless, this is a powerful read to understand the immigrant experience.

[marysgirl · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

I very much enjoyed Junot Díaz's novel The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao. I looked forward to reading his collection of short stories, but found them not quite as engaging as the long-form novel. I liked the quirky characters and insight into a culture I knew almost nothing about. Diaz writes with a visceral feel for his subjects and settings. People who enjoy the short story form should add another star.

[starbox_2 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

The experiences of a Dominican Rep immigrant family, 14 December 2015

This review is from: Drown (Paperback)
Short and deceptively simple stories, following the members of a Dominican republic family, and set both there and in their new home in New Jersey. Adulterous, bullying father, resentful mother and the principal narrator, younger son Yunior; the stories are glimpses into their lives, and the fact that they are not in chronological order adds massively to the impact. So as we see the unhappy household in the USA ("I'd written an essay in school called MY FATHER THE TORTURER, but the teacher made me write a new one. She thought I was kidding"), the final chapter that tells of Father's decision to bring his family over, after many years abandonment has a bitterness rather than the heart-warming feeling it might otherwise have conveyed.
Great writing.

[seriousgrace · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Here's the thing. Anything you read by Diaz is going to feel like heavy drinking in a rough-around-the-edges bar; the kind of place where it's too dark to see; where the soles of your shoes are sticky-stuck to the floor and there is the obsessively constant need to wipe your hands and mouth. Diaz has that conversational, lean in and listen way of talking that sounds slightly conspiratorial but always brutally honest. While the stories change direction and voice, the messages of culture, society, family, tradition and passion do not. Powerful characters are matched only by their fierce loves and tragic losses. Their triumphs and travesties are spilled across the page with a "so what?" wild abandon. It's as if you are elbow to elbow with Diaz as he whispers to you lush stories from his childhood, his coming of age, his entire history. Every story is intensely personal. But, But! But, all the while you are aware that this bar, these stories - this is his turf and you are not safe without him there. You need him to keep talking.

[cattylj-1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Drown is an engulfing collection of interrelated stories, often involving Diaz' narrator Junior. Diaz has a way of writing his characters that makes them known to readers through their words and actions rather than a direct description from the narrator. A skill that is rare and always greatly appreciated.

My main issue with Diaz' writing is the way he portrays women. Almost all of his female characters exist to satisfy his male characters' sexual appetites and little else. And let me be clear - it's not that I'm squeamish or prudish about sex in literature, it's that the women in these stories are rarely granted a serious level of complexity. Diaz is an immensely talented writer and in interviews I've read this doesn't seem to be malicious in intent. But I would love to see the skill he shows in creating Junior applied towards a female character who carries the same depth and weight.

That said, his shortcoming in this area doesn't eclipse the rest of the work. Diaz is an incredibly talented writer giving voice to a community within American culture which is vastly underrepresented in American literature. These stories only get better the more I think about them and I will definitely read more by Diaz in the future.

[grheault_2 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Translated into Spanish as Negocios, a collection of short stories set in the DR and in NY area. The best story of all however, the longest and the last in the book tells a story of a man leaving his family to make his fortune in the USA. It is the story not only of this man coming from the DR to the USA but of economic refugees, ilegal immigrant workers across the world, the terrible hardships and abuse, the separation and distancing from the old life, the fateful choices that are made in trying to start a new life, and the attempts to reconcile the dreams with realities.

[chrisblocker · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Here is a collection of interconnected short stories that is gorgeous. The language is lush. The settings are vibrant. The characters are enthralling. Each story is this collection is brought to life with a barrage of delicately chosen words. Junot Díaz's Drown is a tense, yet lyrical collection which forces a reader pause from time to time in admiration.

The best stories in this collection are the first two and the last three. This worked great for this book as it pulled me in quickly and left me satisfied at its conclusion.

Drown is a wonderful debut. Unfortunately, this makes its brevity all the more disappointing. For all their beauty and intrigue, I was unable to fall in love with any character. Every time I felt I began to feel rooted in one place, I was ripped away and taken five years in the future to another location. Perhaps this is partially the author's intent--to give the reader a taste of these character's hectic lives. But in the end, I know, the richness of the language will stick with me longer than any of these stories will.

Having a taste here of what Díaz is capable of, I am eager to see what he would do with a more focused story. Fortunately, I just acquired a copy of his Pulitzer-winning novel, The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao.

[kmaziarz_4 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Diaz, who won the Pulitzer Prize for his novel The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao (2007), presents in his first collection a thematically-linked series of short stories dealing with the life of a character named Yunior. Yunior serves as an authorial stand-in in many ways, as the stories themselves are explicitly based upon Diaz’s own experiences growing up in poverty in the Dominican Republic and later, in New Jersey. Loud-mouthed, wild, but sensitive in his own way, Yunior is a compelling character surrounded on all sides by hardship and struggle. The stories have a raw and compelling tone and the language alternates between an unaffected simplicity and a soaring lyricism that complements the subject matter well.

[bcteagirl_1 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

This particular set of stories is realistic, and with a writing/speaking style that seems 'authentic' to the situations they are presenting. The situations themselves are largely what I would call 'gritty'. Single parent homes where the fathers have gone to America (ostensibly to make money and send for them) only to disappear, leaving the young boys largely unsupervised. They spend their free time not learning in school, getting with girls, and talking about getting with girls (in much coarser language than that of course). The new immigrants working 18-19 hours a day, only to be treated like sh*t everybody outside their immediate community (While doing the jobs that no one else would do quite frankly). While the voices of the children are sometimes amusing, overall this series of short stories is somewhat dark. Towards the end the stories start overlapping, and we see the same story from the perspective of someone else (e.g. the father gone to America). I did enjoy that.

[eastmad · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

My love of Oscar Wao is due to both to my recognition of geek culture, as well as his unlikely Caribbean roots.

These short stories, like chunks of wholesome bread, so full of life and sustenance, don't wow me like Wao but are essential nonetheless.

Like most good collections, they are a compound eye looking onto the same scene. Never from a distance, always from the time.

[hemlokgang · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

An outstanding collection of stark, blunt stories about immigration from the Dominican Republic from the perspective of children and adults. Junot Diaz pulles no punches in this collection. As the reader, I could feel the overwhelming pull downward financially, socially, and emotionally of the family members. All the stories are connected, yet jumbled. Drowning is a good way to describe the experience of the characters and the reader. Particularly poignant are the several child characters with disabilities and/or deformities. They seem to symbolize the hopelessness and lack of decent choices which are experienced by the characters fromt the DR.

[msf59 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

There are ten stories, linked around a young boy, first growing up in poverty in the Dominican Republic and then moving to a poor area of New Jersey. Another squalid place the American Dream has bypassed. There is an absent father, a strong loving mother and the only career choices available for a boy growing into manhood, are stealing and drug dealing. Dead ends.
His prose is spare and edgy: “We head down a road for utility vehicles, where beer bottles grow out of the weeds like squashes. The Hacienda is past this road, a house with orange tiles on the roof and yellow stucco on the walls. The boards across the windows are as loose as old teeth, the bushes around the front big and mangy like Afros.”
These are darkly beautiful stories, of pain, heartbreak and just enough flashes of distant hope.

[lindseyrivers · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

My first experience with Diaz was with The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao, and followed with Drown. An honest and compelling collection of short stories, however, I'm not sure that I could have related to them as well without reading Oscar Wao first. So that is my suggestions... read Oscar Wao, then Drown and you will love them.

[providencia_1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

I picked up this book after reading an interview with Chuck Palahniuk where he mentions other minimalist writers.
Junot Diaz's stories made me feel he was talking directly with me. The "voice" in these stories are almost autobiographical.

[stephxsu · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

What struck me most about Drown was the book's coherence and sustained interest levels over its entire length. I admit to not liking collections of short fiction very much--but what Drown did was recapture my attention just as it was about to drift away, using unique and unexpected new techniques in the stories. By "Edison, New Jersey" I was tired, even though it was probably my favorite story out of them all. I was tired of the consistency of the narrator's voice, always describing similarly hopeless scenes from his life. Then, "How to Date a Browngirl..." shocked me back into paying attention with its remarkable shift from first-person past-tense POV to second-person instructional POV. "No Face" continued to demand my attention with its present tense and different narrator. What I learned can also be applied within an individual short story: it is the ability to recapture the audience's attention, to continue to surprise them when they think they've got it all figured out, that I appreciated the most out of this collection.

[onemorepage · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

A young Dominican immigrant to the US tells of his fatherless youth in the poverty of the Dominican Republic, of his father and mother's reunion when he is nine, and of his adolescence in New Jersey.

This very well-done story is told from both his point of view and from his father's point of view. Diaz does a great job of showing the social and economic factors that led to this young man becoming who he is.

This short book is well worth your time, I highly recommend it.

[momma2keira · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

I had to start this one a few times, as it failed to grip my attention. There were some storylines I enjoyed more than others, but overall the collection of stories was mediocre. I can't say I loved this book... nor did I dislike it. It was just OK.

[miriamparker_1 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Now THESE are some short stories.

[readingrat_1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Dark, disturbing, and incredibly moving.

[bplma_1 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Ten intensely personal vignettes of life for a young male Dominican immigrant living in the New York/New Jersey area in the 1980s and 90s. That soul-sucking urban poverty in both the DR and the US is the background for every story, along with dysfunctional families--functioning in the ways they know how--girlfriends, aunts, uncles, distant moms, disappointing dads--living their everyday lives and told in the disconnected voice of a young male relating everyday struggles and humiliations as if he were not a part of them. Some loom large---Your dad brings you and your brother to his mistresses house where he, apparently, has another family. His mistress is nice to you, the house is nicer than the one you live in with your mother, and they leave you in the living room to watch TV while they go into the bedroom. On the way home, back to your mother, your dad doesn't talk about this.... Others are much more subtle---hide the government cheese and the picture of yourself with an afro before a new girlfriend comes over...
I loved this book and read through it twice. Diaz creates sympathy for often-unsympathetic characters and sucks us into the lives of his characters with subtlety and lightness of touch. Lots to talk and think and write about here. Older teens and adults will eat this up. Highly recommended.

[emed0s · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Writing like this is really hard to find. I really can't describe it, it's just perfect.

I didn't give it five stars because I can't relate to the inmigrant side of the stories.

[ibreak4books · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

nice, gritty things. After a while, however, I did sense a sameness to the stories which almost seemed inevitable. Was the protagonist the same guy in each story? I could never be sure.