I finally broke down and purchased Junot Diaz’ short story collection Drown – after months and months in which my post on the audio version of How to date a browngirl (blackgirl, whitegirl or halfie) was consistently the top post on this blog, I felt I owed a debt to Mr Diaz. Even if I don’t really like short stories.
But now that I have embarked on my Short Story Appreciation Quest, in which I set out to discover the secret of short stories and finally begin to love them now that I am growing old and grey, a small investment like this seemed reasonable enough. Besides, I’d be willing to bet that one of Junot Diaz’ stories shows up in next year’s Abitur (like the Jhumpa Lahiri story today) – in fact, “How to date…” would make for a perfect, perfect test question.
Back to “Boyfriend”, though. This story, while very unlikely to turn into an Abitur question (the language is fairly strong*), was the first one I read in the collection and I am pleased to announce that my quest has begun very well indeed: this is a gem of a story! It is really, really good! (more…)
