Love isn't easy to come by when you're an overweight nerd like Oscar, but it's even more rare when you have fukú to deal with. The friendly narrator in The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao, who has such a conversational tone that you feel like you've been sitting on his couch listening to the whole story in person, introduces us to history of this curse. We learn that it made it's way to the Dominican Republic and surrounding islands with the Europeans and cuddled up with the dictator at the time, known as Trujillo, who killed, raped, and doomed thousands of families to endure the wrath of fukú.
Oscar is part of one such family and the story of each of its members is told from their perspective. We learn of Lola's trials with her hateful mother and being sent back to the DR to spend time with her grandmother. Beli, Lola and Oscar's mother, is tough as nails and mean to boot as a result of the death of both of her parents, abuse, and betrayal. Her saving grace was La Inca, her aunt and adoptive mother, who is the glue that holds the family together. Then, there's Yunior, who is revealed as the narrator partway through the book. He was Oscar's roommate at Rutgers and dates Lola for a few years before his cheating ways finally catch up with him.
As the stories of these characters and many more are told we begin to realize that fukú is truly inescapable. It's something beyond this world that lives in the fantastical realm that determines one's fate before they are even born. Diaz brings mythology into the modern day with his magical way of melding history, reality, and mysticism; all held together with a spattering of expletives.
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