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1.27 mi | ASHBURN 20147
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Return Window | 30 days from delivery |
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Item must be in original condition and packaging along with tag, accessories, manuals, and inserts. Unlock any electronic device, delete your account and remove all personal information. |
Returnable | Yes |
---|---|
Resolutions | Eligible for refund or replacement |
Return Window | 30 days from delivery |
Refund Timelines | Typically, an advance refund will be issued within 24 hours of a drop-off or pick-up. For returns that require physical verification, refund issuance may take up to 30 days after drop-off or pick up. Where an advance refund is issued, we will re-charge your payment method if we do not receive the correct item in original condition. See details here. |
Late fee | A late fee of 20% of the item price will apply if you complete the drop off or pick up after the ‘Return By Date’. |
Restocking fee | A restocking fee may apply if the item is not returned in original condition and original packaging, or is damaged or missing parts for reasons not due to Amazon or seller error. See details here. |
Return instructions
Item must be in original condition and packaging along with tag, accessories, manuals, and inserts. Unlock any electronic device, delete your account and remove all personal information. |
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Drown Paperback – Import, January 1, 1996
Purchase options and add-ons
A coming-of-age story of unparalleled power, Drown introduced the world to Junot Díaz's exhilarating talents. It also introduced an unforgettable narrator— Yunior, the haunted, brilliant young man who tracks his family’s precarious journey from the barrios of Santo Domingo to the tenements of industrial New Jersey, and their epic passage from hope to loss to something like love. Here is the soulful, unsparing book that made Díaz a literary sensation.
- Print length240 pages
- LanguageEnglish
- PublisherRiverhead Books
- Publication dateJanuary 1, 1996
- Dimensions5.1 x 0.62 x 7.95 inches
- ISBN-101573226068
- ISBN-13978-1573226066
- Lexile measure830L
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Editorial Reviews
From School Library Journal
Review
“Remarkable.”
—Entertainment Weekly
“Powerful and revelatory.”
—Houston Chronicle
“There have been several noteworthy literary debuts this year, but Díaz deserves to be singled out for the distinctiveness and caliber of his voice, and for his ability to sum up a range of cultural and cross-cultural experiences in a few sharp images…. The motifs—the father absent and indifferent to the family, his infidelities and bullying while they’re united, the shabby disrepair of northern New Jersey—resonate from story to story and give Drown its cohesion and weight…. These 10 finely achieved short stories reveal a writer who will still have something to say after he has used up his own youthful experiences and heartaches.”
—The Philadelphia Inquirer
“Talent this big will always make noise…. [The ten stories in Drown] vividly evoke Díaz’s hardscrabble youth in the Dominican Republic and New Jersey, where ‘our community was separated from all the other communities by a six-lane highway and the dump.’ Díaz has the dispassionate eye of a journalist and the tongue of a poet…”
—Newsweek
“This stunning collection of stories is an unsentimental glimpse at life among immigrants from the Dominican Republic—and another front-line report on the ambivalent promise of the American Dream. Díaz is writing about more than physical dislocation. There is a price for leaving culture and homeland behind…In this cubistic telling, life is marked by relentless machismo, flashes of violence and severe tests of faith from loved ones. The characters are weighted down by the harshness of their circumstances, yet Díaz gives his young narrators a wry sense of humor.”
—San Francisco Chronicle
“Graceful and raw and painful and smart…His prose is sensible poetry that moves like an interesting conversation…The pages turn and all of a sudden you’re done and you want more.”
—The Boston Globe
“A stunning and kinetic first collection of short stories…. Díaz has the ear of a poet (a rarity among fiction writers), and many of his stories are piloted by a compelling and often fiercely observed first-person narration. Díaz’s precise language drives the accumulation of particular concrete sensory details to the universals of broader, nuanced experience. Comparisons to writers like Sandra Cisneros or Jess Mowry or even Edwidge Danticat (all of whom are at the top of my list) are probably inevitable, but Díaz distinguishes himself thoroughly in this book…. In an era of the glib, hip ‘I’ve-seen-it-all-nothing-shocks-me-anymore’ narrator, Díaz doesn’t back away from sentiment. Though he is never mawkish, his stories are richly textured in feeling…Díaz is a life-smart, savvy writer who, because he’s honest and often funny, very gently breaks your heart.”
—Hungry Mind Review
“New Jersey and the Dominican Republic are thousands of miles apart, but in Junot Díaz’s seductive collection of short stories, they seem to blend into each other as effortlessly as Díaz weaves the words that bring to life the recurring characters that populate both places…. In a sense, this book is about that old and much misunderstood Latino demon, machismo, which only recently is being seen as something not innate to Latino males, but rather as the result of their often futile attempts to reconcile their dual roles as men (in the eyes of their families) and as mere boys (in the eyes of the outside world)…. There’s a lot of artistry in this book, and where there is art, there is always hope.”
—Austin American-Statesman
“Remarkable…His style is succinct and unadorned, yet the effect is lush and vivid, and after a few lines you are there with him, living in his documentary, his narration running through your head almost like your own thoughts…. Vignettes…observed with depth and tenderness but most of all with a simple honesty that rings as clear and true as a wind chime.”
—The Dallas Morning News
“Mesmerizingly honest, heart-breaking and full of promise…Tales of life among the excluded classes of the diaspora, they tread fearlessly where lesser writers gush and politicize—which is exactly their political and aesthetic power.”
—Si Magazine
“Junot Díaz’s stories are as vibrant, tough, unexotic, and beautiful as their settings—Santo Domingo, Dominican Nueva 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. Díaz is going to be a giant of American prose.”
—Francisco Goldman
About the Author
Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.
Praise for DROWN by Junot Díaz
“There have been several noteworthy literary debuts this year, but Díaz deserves to be singled out for the distinctiveness and caliber of his voice, and for his ability to sum up a range of cultural and cross-cultural experiences in a few sharp images…. The motifs—the father absent and indifferent to the family, his infidelities and bullying while they’re united, the shabby disrepair of northern New Jersey—resonate from story to story and give Drown its cohesion and weight…. These are powerful and convincing stories. And what is powerful in these stories isn’t their cultural message, though that is strong, but a broader, more basic theme…. These 10 finely achieved short stories reveal a writer who will still have something to say after he has used up his own youthful experiences and heartaches.”
—The Philadelphia Inquirer
“Talent this big will always make noise…. [The ten stories in Drown] vividly evoke Díaz’s hardscrabble youth in the Dominican Republic and New Jersey, where ‘our community was separated from all the other communities by a six-lane highway and the dump.’ Díaz has the dispassionate eye of a journalist and the tongue of a poet…”
—Newsweek
“Junot Díaz’s stories are as vibrant, tough, unexotic, and beautiful as their settings—Santo Domingo, Dominican Nueva 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. Díaz is going to be a giant of American prose.”
—Francisco Goldman
“This stunning collection of stories is an unsentimental glimpse at life among immigrants from the Dominican Republic—and another front-line report on the ambivalent promise of the American Dream. Díaz is writing about more than physical dislocation. There is a price for leaving culture and homeland behind…In this cubistic telling, life is marked by relentless machismo, flashes of violence and severe tests of faith from loved ones. The characters are weighted down by the harshness of their circumstances, yet Díaz gives his young narrators a wry sense of humor.”
—San Francisco Chronicle
“Graceful and raw and painful and smart…His prose is sensible poetry that moves like an interesting conversation…The pages turn and all of a sudden you’re done and you want more.”
—The Boston Globe
“A stunning and kinetic first collection of short stories…. Díaz has the ear of a poet (a rarity among fiction writers), and many of his stories are piloted by a compelling and often fiercely observed first-person narration. Díaz’s precise language drives the accumulation of particular concrete sensory details to the universals of broader, nuanced experience. Comparisons to writers like Sandra Cisneros or Jess Mowry or even Edwidge Danticat (all of whom are at the top of my list) are probably inevitable, but Díaz distinguishes himself thoroughly in this book…. In an era of the glib, hip ‘I’ve-seen-it-all-nothing-shocks-me-anymore’ narrator, Díaz doesn’t back away from sentiment. Though he is never mawkish, his stories are richly textured in feeling…Díaz is a life-smart, savvy writer who, because he’s honest and often funny, very gently breaks your heart.”
—Hungry Mind Review
“New Jersey and the Dominican Republic are thousands of miles apart, but in Junot Díaz’s seductive collection of short stories, they seem to blend into each other as effortlessly as Díaz weaves the words that bring to life the recurring characters that populate both places…. In a sense, this book is about that old and much misunderstood Latino demon, machismo, which only recently is being seen as something not innate to Latino males, but rather as the result of their often futile attempts to reconcile their dual roles as men (in the eyes of their families) and as mere boys (in the eyes of the outside world)…. There’s a lot of artistry in this book, and where there is art, there is always hope.”
—Austin American-Statesman
“Remarkable…His style is succinct and unadorned, yet the effect is lush and vivid, and after a few lines you are there with him, living in his documentary, his narration running through your head almost like your own thoughts…. Vignettes…observed with depth and tenderness but most of all with a simple honesty that rings as clear and true as a wind chime.”
—The Dallas Morning News
“Mesmerizingly honest, heart-breaking and full of promise…Tales of life among the excluded classes of the diaspora, they tread fearlessly where lesser writers gush and politicize—which is exactly their political and aesthetic power.”
—Si Magazine
“Remarkable.”
—Entertainment Weekly
“The talent is strong and individual…. Díaz’s languageis careful and astringent…powerful and revelatory.”
—Houston Chronicle
Product details
- Publisher : Riverhead Books; First Edition (January 1, 1996)
- Language : English
- Paperback : 240 pages
- ISBN-10 : 1573226068
- ISBN-13 : 978-1573226066
- Lexile measure : 830L
- Item Weight : 6.4 ounces
- Dimensions : 5.1 x 0.62 x 7.95 inches
- Best Sellers Rank: #41,488 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #82 in Hispanic American Literature & Fiction
- #998 in Short Stories (Books)
- #3,654 in Literary Fiction (Books)
- Customer Reviews:
About the author
Junot Díaz was born in the Dominican Republic and raised in New Jersey. He is the author of the critically acclaimed Drown; The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao, which won the 2008 Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Critics Circle Award; and This Is How You Lose Her, a New York Times bestseller and National Book Award finalist. He is the recipient of a MacArthur “Genius” Fellowship, PEN/Malamud Award, Dayton Literary Peace Prize, Guggenheim Fellowship, and PEN/O. Henry Award. A graduate of Rutgers College, Díaz is currently the fiction editor at Boston Review and the Rudge and Nancy Allen Professor of Writing at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
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Customer reviews
Customer Reviews, including Product Star Ratings help customers to learn more about the product and decide whether it is the right product for them.
To calculate the overall star rating and percentage breakdown by star, we don’t use a simple average. Instead, our system considers things like how recent a review is and if the reviewer bought the item on Amazon. It also analyzed reviews to verify trustworthiness.
Learn more how customers reviews work on AmazonCustomers say
Customers find the stories captivating and the author great. They also appreciate the intelligent, graphic, honest, and natural writing style. They describe the writing quality as well-written and unique. Readers say the content is solid, believable, and more than like drawn from. However, some find the sequence a bit hard to follow.
AI-generated from the text of customer reviews
Customers find the story captivating, brilliant, and easy to follow. They also say the book is vivid and summons up various senses, providing just enough detail.
"...how to make an account vivid with great economy, summoning up the various senses, providing just enough detail...." Read more
"...His writing reveals deep and profound observations and emotions and he expresses them so eloquently" Read more
"...The story is easy to follow, especially if you are from any Latin background because the writing in this is one of familiarity...." Read more
"...DIsregard the time concept of this story for a second, the stories by themselves are ok. Some are better than others...." Read more
Customers find the writing quality of the book well-written, with lots of pages and big words. They also appreciate the author's excellent command of both languages and the wonderful descriptions. Readers also describe the author as a marvelous craftsman and unique.
"...Diaz is that rarity, a real artist with wide accessibility, a marvelous craftsman in the service of a group with which most of us are not personally..." Read more
"...It was so well written. i could not put my kindle down because i was that into it...." Read more
"...His writing flows smoothly as he is describing from the point of view of the boy from youth to young adult...." Read more
"...This Dominican-American author has an excellent command of both languages...." Read more
Customers find the writing style comedic, natural, and intelligent. They also appreciate the descriptive writing, which is often unobtrusively poetic. Readers also love the word usage and play, and the solid, believable characters. They say the book lets them connect with the characters in a way that encourages empathy and hatred.
"...Desciptions are often unobtrusively poetic...." Read more
"I love Junot Diaz’s writing style, he’s dramatic, yet hilarious...." Read more
"...reveals deep and profound observations and emotions and he expresses them so eloquently" Read more
"...He employs a style that is wry and smooth, spare and poetical, and frequently rooted in the richness of the vernacular...." Read more
Customers find the characters in the book believable, honest, and gritty. They also say the book is intelligent, graphic, and honest.
"...but whose work bears the earmarks of both great affection and great honesty." Read more
"Junat character are solid, believable and more than like drawn from real experience, which I can relate too...." Read more
"...The author made these stories memorable and unflinchingly real. Excellent" Read more
"...It is frank and the use of both english and spanish shows the brilliance is knowing how to use language." Read more
Customers find the author great.
"This is an extraordinary collection by an extraordinary writer, about young Dominican men drowning in an over masculinized society...." Read more
"...I read all his following books. A GREAT GREAT WRITER...." Read more
"Junot Diaz is an important and relevant author who captures the immigrant experience well. His writing style is unique and captivating." Read more
"If you are unfamiliar with Junot Diaz, this book is a great way to discover his writing talents...." Read more
Customers find the tone refreshing, lively, and interesting expressed.
"Great collection of Short stories.Interesting expressed. Lively, enchanting in a way...." Read more
"Engrossing. Junot Diaz at his best." Read more
"...a must! This book refreshes every library. A lot has been said about this author. I agree: he is unique." Read more
"Refreshing, excellent read..." Read more
Customers find the book raw.
"...Raw, real, funny, poignant, gripping. If you want a glimpse into his world, this one is a magnifying glass." Read more
"The stories of the immigrant experience seem so raw and honest...." Read more
"It's a good book, and it's raw." Read more
Customers find the book hard to follow and repetitive. They also say the sequence is not in chronological order.
"...A little difficult to follow the chronology at times." Read more
"...My issue is that as a book, a compilation of stories, it got very repetitive...." Read more
"...The book is a good read and very fun to read. It is not in chronological order and i think that adds to it flavor...." Read more
"...book is rambling and jumps from subject to subject until it's difficult to follow...." Read more
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I have had reasons to be skeptical of Pulitzer winners; and MacArthur "genius" grants have often gone to minority artists with suspicious frequency. Suspicions are irrevelant here; Diaz deserves every accolade. As a writer, he straps one arm behind his back—limits his vocabulary and powers of observation—when he presents all but one of these stories from the point of view of a poor young Dominican-American with no special gifts of description or insight, a kind of ethnic everyman. (Even the odd story of the group, "Negocios," told in the third person about a Dominican's coming to America to establish a foothold for his left-behind family, is narrated in an ostensibly matter-of-fact style) But in all cases Diaz' plainly told tales disguise great art. Desciptions are often unobtrusively poetic. Diaz understands how to make an account vivid with great economy, summoning up the various senses, providing just enough detail. I reflexively recoiled at having to read "Aurora," the narrative of a low-level drug dealer and petty criminal, but in fact that represented Diaz, in spite of the profane dialogue, at his most lyrical and telling. Here is the paragraph of the protagonist starting on a run for burgers for himself and friends:
The Pathfinder sits in the next parking lot, crusty with mud but still a slamming ride. I'm in no rush; I take it out behind the apartments, onto the road that leads to the dump. This was our spot when we were younger, where we started fires we sometimes couldn't keep down. Whose areas around the road are still black. Everything that catches in my headlights—the stack of old tires, signs, shacks—has a memory scratched onto it. Here's where I shot my first pistol. Here's where we stashed our porn magazines. Here's where I kissed my first girl.
The present-tense account nevertheless reveals the kid's constricted past life, all of it spent in the same terrain, the same depressing area, and brilliantly summarized without getting self-consciously literary or getting out of character. In prose almost Hemingwayesque in its simplicity.
I think Diaz set out consciously to be the voice of Dominican immigrants and first-generation Americans, but I suppose he also knew to write what he knew best. In that he has done for them what Ernest P. Jones did for African-Americans In Washington, D.C., Saroyan for Armenian-Americans or Joyce for Dubliners. But like them, he goes far beyond to call forth the humanity in a reader of any ethnicity at all.
I had been slightly disappointed by some other authors that I think are Diaz' contemporaries, by Colson Whitehead ("The Intuitionist") and Jennifer Egan ("A Visit from the Goon Squad"), for example, but Junot Diaz is that rarity, a real artist with wide accessibility, a marvelous craftsman in the service of a group with which most of us are not personally familiar, but whose work bears the earmarks of both great affection and great honesty.
Drown touches on topics of poverty, life in the DR (can be substituted by almost any Latin American country), struggles of immigration, abandonment due to immigration, dysfunctional fathers, generational dysfunction & much more. It’s a good book, but it was a bit scattered for me. Some of the stories left me hanging. What happened to the older brother, Rafa? I finished the book in 2 nights, did I miss something, did I read past Rafa? What happened to Ysrael?
Maybe I should’ve read this one before Oscar Wao. Now that was an amazing book!
It was so well written. i could not put my kindle down because i was that into it.
Junot Diaz's writing skills make me want to revisit those often odd and out of place events in my time line where my dominican side and my new americanized side overlapped. Some moments were pure comedy.
I really loved this book. And the fact that it was based in jersey and he mentioned my hometown ( union city) made it perfect.
I can not wait for a new book. He makes me proud to be a Dominican.