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In Person
By Claiborne K.H. Smith
OCTOBER 13, 1997:
Junot Diaz at Book People, Sept. 4
Trends in fiction come and go just as trends in supposedly less abstract realms come
and go; lately a lot of books I've been reading feature wizened teenagers and children
who somehow are able to voice truths we would only expect to hear from much more
experienced individuals. Junot Diaz's Drown is out of the ordinary for several
reasons, but particularly because it captures its young protagonists at their own
age, and provides them their own spare language that speaks more effectively than
texts in which authors try to pass off their own ideas as their young protagonists'.
When I met Diaz on the day of his reading at BookPeople, and asked him about this
phenomenon, he said that many writers will allow their young protagonists to speak
beyond their years because the writers themselves were told when young how smart
they were, and thus see no problem in allowing their characters the same verbal latitude.
Not so with Diaz. He makes no
bones about his development in the Dominican Republic and the fact that no one ever
told him how intelligent he was or expected anything out of the ordinary from him;
thankfully, his fiction profits. Drown has garnered notices and reviews from
around the nation that would send most authors publishing their first collection
of short stories straight to heaven, but Diaz, though he acknowledges how welcome
that praise is, nonetheless seems propelled to take a step back and hesitate before
turning in a new work to Riverhead Books, his publisher. The heady praise he receives
seems in conflict with the Drown tone, which, because of its polished austerity,
almost turns a cold shoulder to the reader's desire to dive into the narrative. May
Diaz be able to do the same with all of his praise.
-- Claiborne K.H. Smith
Mark Wisniewski
If you've ever wondered what a novelist's eyes should look like, take a look at a
photograph of Mark Wisniewski. His eyes are steely, precise, and exacting. Having
read his successful first novel, Confessions of a Polish Used Car Salesman
before meeting him, I expected no less if only because Confessions, or at
least its protagonist, rendered in first person, embodies all those qualities listed
above. The novel begins by telling the story of a young boy and his take on the poor
Polish grandparents raising him in Milwaukee in the late Fifties. Not much happens
to this unnamed kid, but what does happen occurs really out of continual neglect
of him. Person after person not so much refuses to take care of him as allows him
to make his own headway in the world, and having been fed stories of his missing
father's excellence in basically scamming people on used cars and other ventures,
scamming is the life work the child rather early on decides to undertake. It's not
that it's all downhill from there, it's not -- it's just that newly learned schemes
are plot points of sorts as the protagonist learns more and more about his trade
until "the big sell" makes its way onto his horizon.
There's no point in telling you more plot-wise as the novel delves into cinematic
twists and turns. But by "cinematic" I don't exactly mean mainstream Hollywood;
I mean Coen brothers or some other non-experimental but vaguely "abstract"
filmmaker. In short, the novel is humorous but troubling, enlightening but cautionary,
a liminal, mercurial, but spare take on the scamming business as seen through Polish
eyes. Wisniewski himself told me that many readers have compared Confessions to
Fargo, and those who have are right on the money. Both works hone in specifically
on certain cultures and occupy a space somewhere between uneasy comedy and the vicious
drama of low-lifes. What do the Coen brothers' eyes look like?
-- Claiborne K.H.Smith
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