Think back to your high school days. And now think about all the terrible things that happened to you then. A curse would explain all of that, wouldn’t it? Like the fact that your voice uncontrollably cracked every day for three years, or that you had hair, lots of hair, where other kids didn’t? A curse, when you think about it, is really the only logical explanation. For Oscar Wao, the curse has a name —Fukú — and it’s billed as the “the Curse and Doom of the New World”. The Wao family has endured five hundred years of tragedy, premature death, torture and star-crossed love, and that has all fallen down on little Oscar’s pubescent shoulders.

And all he wants to do is be the Dominican J.R.R. Tolkien! And have a girlfriend! But so it goes in Junot Diaz’s first novel The Brief Wonderous Life of Oscar Wao. Reminiscent of Jonathan Safran Foer at his best, Diaz plumbs the depths of the Wao family, bringing to light every instance of Fukú and how it has shaped Oscar’s life.

Listen to Alan Cheuse’s review on NPR, and expect to see this book again.