Book Tours

Why We’re Blushing: Junot Díaz Thinks Boulder is “Kind of Hot”

By Jenny Shank, 9-21-07

Junot Díaz gave an engaging reading from his new novel The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao to a packed house at the Boulder Book Store Thursday night.  Díaz is that rare literary novelist who inspires ardor in his fans (literary blogger Maud Newton recently asked, “Where’s the national Junot Díaz Novel Publication Holiday campaign?” and made note of rampant Díaz worship).  Reviews of the novel, including mine for the Rocky Mountain News, have been glowing, and everything about Díaz Thursday night was smooth, from his shaved head, to his black velvet blazer, to the way he slipped in a quick “salud” when a woman in the audience sneezed.

Before the reading started, I overheard some booksellers chatting about him.  “He could not have been nicer,” one woman said, sounding smitten.  “He’s charming, he’s sweet, he’s appreciative, he’s funny.”

Díaz began by asking the audience to tell him about Boulder, and explained that he doesn’t get to spend much time in the cities he visits on his book tour, so he likes to ask the audience about them.  “I’ve never been to your city before,” Díaz said.  “It’s actually stupendous.  I never realized--it’s kind of hot.” He went on to qualify his observation: “I just cruised by, so I don’t know, it could be some sort of Nightmare on Elm Street type nightmare.”

The audience was reluctant to discuss Boulder, but Díaz persisted. “Boulder seems like a really interesting place.”

“Well it’s not Washington Heights and it’s not the Bronx,” one woman finally responded.

“Come on,” Díaz said, “you’ve got to do better than Iowa City.  They were complaining about road construction.”

“It’s a pretty political town,” one man said.  Another said that it has nothing in common in its political views with the rest of the state.  “The Independent Republic of Boulder,” a woman added.

“Oh, so it’s like Cambridge,” Díaz, who teaches at MIT, said.  “If anyone is from Massachusetts, I apologize for the calumnious statement I’m about to make, but it’s a fucking nutty state.”

Díaz was winning and natural in front of the crowd, which at most readings, let’s face it, consists largely of nerds.  Having likely honed his nerd drawing-out skills as a teacher at MIT, he engaged the audience, chatting about the Tolkien thread of his novel and asking someone to explain who Morgoth is.  “Morgoth was the previous Sauron,” a man said, authoritatively. 

“Are there any writers in the audience?” Díaz asked.  Most people were too terrified to raise their hands higher than waist level, but he was able to coax a young woman into explaining the problem of writing in the second person. “What if your audience doesn’t relate to what you’re talking about?” she said.

Díaz explained that he had a teacher who made him write one second person story a month, and that he thought it was beneficial to “practice second person because it gives you muscles in other areas.” He then read a passage from the novel that was from the second-person perspective of the character Lola.

Díaz explained that he “grew up with an ontological conflict.” His mother was empirical, and always encouraging her children to study science and math, whereas his grandmother would say things like, “The reason your neighbor has no children is because his old girlfriend cursed him.  If you have a girlfriend who his trying to curse you, wear your underwear inside out.” This novel, he said, “was my way of trying to figure out a home for both my grandmother and my mother.”

A woman who had lived in the D.R. for three years said she wondered if other readers were able to pick up on the un-translated Dominican slang.

Díaz asked, “But did people get all that crazy comic book stuff?  Is there anyone here who got all that nerd stuff?” He looked around.  “Ah, no one will claim it.  What about that dude that told me all about Mordor?”

“I haven’t read it yet,” the Tolkien fan admitted.  “Maybe I will,” he allowed.

I raised my hand and asked Díaz how he came to write a narrative that mixes omniscient, limited third person, first person and second person perspectives.

Díaz explained, “There’s a folktale that’s big all over the Dominican desert--it’s called the baca.  It’s a shape shifter, but no one knows what its original form is.” Díaz said he wanted to make a book that “at the level of narrative was a shape-shifter…Readers are always trying to seize the book, but a really good narrative is always slipping between your fingers.” Díaz said he worked on this aspect of the novel a long time, “because the shifts were always visible.”

“Back at my apartment I have thousands of pages of failed attempts at equilibrium.” He said that he wasn’t necessarily happy with the final result, “but I just couldn’t do it anymore.”

A man asked if Díaz had read the Marvel Civil War comic book series, and what he thought of the “assassination of Captain America.”

Díaz bantered with him a bit about comics, then instructed the audience to “always read a genre, because all of the scary shit about people--that’s where folks let it out.  You’d have no idea what our culture is about if you only read literary fiction.  In literary fiction, people don’t even seem to have bodies.  But the horror section is all about bodies, our fear of having them harmed.”

He said he’s always telling his students, “Talk to me about Roth and all those crazy fools, but you’ve got to bring that Stephen King.”

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