This collection of interconnected stories goes down easy (except for the inclusion of lots of untranslated Spanish phrases and slang), has its moments of poignancy and humor, but ultimately isn't anything to write home about—its hardly worth writing in a blog about. It certainly didn't live up to the enormous hype Diaz has received from virtually every direction of the contemporary literary compass. But to be honest, unless we were talking about the second-coming of Beckett or Burroughs (Wm S.) how could it? Your typical reader of Mademoiselle or Glamour coming upon any of these stories between articles on make-up tips and the etiquette of "backyard sex" would have no problem comprehending them. They are just that unchallenging—or accessible, take your pick—as literature.
{Somehow, as I write about this book, or discuss it with someone, I find myself being a lot more critical and dismissive than I felt while reading it. The fact is that "This is How You Lose Her" was a fairly enjoyable read—the literary equivalent of health food potato chips. You know, the kind made of kale and taro root and lightly salted crispy crap like that. But I occasionally eat those chips and I read this book and while both aren't the real thing, they are a good enough substitute in a pinch.}
A good half of the stories are about a guy, Yunior, treating women like shit and then regretting it later. What's curious is that he never really examines why he repeats this pattern or why he treats women like shit in the first place. The closest he comes to an insight on the matter is that "Hey, I'm a Dominican man. This is what we do." In other words, according to Diaz, Dominican men are just genetically incapable of keeping their dicks out of a hot Dominican mami. No kidding, this is about the depth of the self-analysis. The problem for Yunior is that while he wants to be a player he can't be as callous and devil-may-care as the real players. So you are privy to his constant whining as he kicks himself in the seat of his pants through one story after another. He lost the love of his life through his own reckless short-sightedness, how could he be so stupid, if he only had another chance, etc etc etc. Everyone has known people like this—some of us have even been people like this at certain times of our lives—and it gets real tiring real fast to watch them make the same mistake over and over and then have to watch the endless self-pity parade that follows.
I guess what saves these stories is that they are so painfully reflective of real people we've known (and been) that we do have sympathy for Yunior. At least, up to a point. By the end of the book, I was pretty much happy to see the tail end of him. Especially inasmuch as there was no indication that he had learned a damned thing that allowed one any reasonable expectation that he'd ever really change.
When these stories aren't about Yunior and his problem with keeping it in his pants, they detail the Dominican immigrant experience, in particular, Yunior's lower middle-class suburban childhood. There's no doubt that this experience is under-represented in American literature and that makes it valuable in itself. But that aside nothing Diaz has to say about childhood is terribly original. Yunior has a charismatic brother who is dying of cancer, an impatient, philandering father, an unappreciated, long-suffering mother. He feels alienated, misunderstood, and painfully conspicuous as a sore toe. Who didn't at that age? Please stand up so we can all throw our milk cartons at you. I suspect that's another reason why these stories are so popular: they tap into that universal feeling of alienation that no matter how scabbed over we never grow tired of picking.
"This is How You Lose Her" is well-written; there's no questioning that. But it's the accessible, lucid, direct sort of well-written that doesn't allow for either linguistic sensuality or complex thought. Not a single sentence requires re-reading. There's not one dangerous curve to slow down a reader's racing eyeballs. You can digest entire paragraphs, whole pages without hardly chewing. The two best lines—and profoundest insights—of the whole book come on the very last page of the very last story "The Cheater's Guide to Love." They are: "The half-life of love is forever." and "Sometimes a start is all we ever get."
I doubt I'd go out of my way to read Junot Diaz again. I get the sense—at least from this story collection—that if he isn't a one-trick pony, he's a one-and-a-half trick pony. It's a good enough trick for 213 pages and having seen it free courtesy of the public library, I don't need to see it any more.
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