Hi Crystal,
So I haven’t finished a new book since last week, (I’m working on Zadie Smith’s White Teeth, which is a vision and a revelation) but I did read The Cheater’s Guide to Love, a short story by Junot Díaz published by The New Yorker in 2012. The magazine has been releasing pieces from its archive for free this summer, which is wonderful and overwhelming at the same time, since I’m too cheap to pay for a subscription to my favorite magazine otherwise.
The story is about Yunior, who is also in The Secret Life of Oscar Wao and This is How You Lose Her. His girl leaves him because she catches him cheating, and Yunior is trying to move on, more or less. That doesn’t work too well.
Díaz’s narrative is as rousing and as present as it is in Oscar Wao. It’s written in the second person, a narrative mode that I really like. It’s poetic, not because the author uses beautiful words but because his words sound so beautiful and easy together. And there is again that familiar union of Spanish and English on American soil. Díaz is unapologetic and direct in writing about Yunior’s mistakes in love, his generally shitty behavior. The plot moves evenly through the six years following Yunior’s break-up, in a way that makes reading the story in one sitting mindless.
I’d recommend you read it, obviously. It’s not like it could have been bad or anything; it was in The New Yorker. I would probably read the nutrition label of Fiber One bar if they published it. Here’s a link to the story and here’s a link to an interview with Díaz about the story. Definitely a person I’d love to talk to. Compelling and inspiring all around.
See you soon!
Sincerely,
Ana
Ex Libris 