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This chapter-by-chapter summary contains plot spoilers!
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Summary of The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao by Junot Diaz Pulitzer Prize
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Summary from the Book Jacket: "Things have never been easy for Oscar, a sweet but disastrously overweight ghetto nerd, a New Jersey romantic who dreams of becoming the Dominican J.R.R. Tolkien and, most of all, of finding love. But he may never get what he wants, thanks to the fuku – the ancient curse that has haunted Oscar's family for generations, dooming them to prison, torture, tragic accidents, and, above all, ill-starred love. Oscar, still dreaming of his first kiss, is only its most recent victim – until the fateful summer that he decides to be its last. With dazzling energy and insight, Junot Diaz immerses us in the uproarious lives of our hero Oscar, his runaway sister Lola, and their ferocious beauty-queen mother Belicia, and in the family's epic journey from Santo Domingo to Washington Heights to New Jersey's Bergenline and back again. Rendered with uncommon warmth and humor, The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao presents an astonishing vision of the contemporary American experience and the endless human capacity to persevere – and to risk it all – in the name of love. A true literary triumph, this novel confirms Junot Diaz as one of the best and most exciting writers of our time."
Characters:
- Abelard Cabral - father of Beli
- Beli (Belicia) Cabral de Leon - Oscar and Lola's mother
- La Inca - the aunt who raised Beli, and "grandmother" to Oscar and Lola
- Lola de Leon - older sister to Oscar
- Oscar de Leon - our protagonist
- Ybon - "semi-retired" prostitute with whom Oscar falls in love
- Yunior - our narrator and the occasional boyfriend of Lola
Title: "Oscar Wao" is a joking variation on Oscar Wilde. In college, Oscar dresses up as Dr. Who for Halloween, and Yunior remarks that he looks like Oscar Wilde. Everyone begins calling him Oscar Wao.
Pages 1 – 50
(Brought to you by kat impatientreader.com) Pages 1-7. The narrator, a Dominican guy named Yunior who knows Oscar's family, explains about the fuku (curse) created in the New World by the Admiral (Columbus) who landed in the Caribbean. The narrator considers the Dominican Republic, especially its capital Santo Domingo, to be at "ground zero" of the curse, and supports this with quasi-facetious footnotes documenting the rule from 1930 to 1961 of the dictator Trujillo (Rafael Leónidas Trujillo Molina).
Book I. Chapter 1. Ghetto Nerd at the End of the World 1974-1987. In Washington Heights in New York City, Oscar is a seven year-old "ladies man" who has two little girlfriends at the same time until he breaks up with the ugly one Olga. Then the pretty one Maritza breaks up with him. Later Oscar and Olga turn into "overweight freaks" and Maritza becomes a promiscuous victim of abusive boyfriends. In high school at Don Bosco Tech, Oscar is an overweight science-fiction nerd who never dates. His family, except for his sympathetic sister Lola, thinks he's hopeless. He experiences desperate crushes upon oblivious girls.
In their senior year Oscar's two high-school friends Al and Miggs finally land some "skanks" as girlfriends so they can have sex, but Oscar remains the odd nerd out. He realizes they're not really his friends. That summer their mother sends Oscar and his sister Lola back to Santo Domingo to stay with their grandmother La Inca. Lola parties and has fun and Oscar spends his days inside, writing science-fiction. Unlike his mother, La Inca lets him stay inside and doesn't push him out to get beaten up by the neighborhood boys. La Inca tells him that his mother Beli could have been a doctor like her own father if not for meeting a bad man.
Oscar and Lola return to their mother's house now in Bergenline, New Jersey. He studies for his SATs while Lola struggles with college courses at Rutgers University. Oscar falls hard for Ana a pretty girl in his SAT-prep course. She likes him as only as a friend. They hang out together until her abusive ex-boyfriend Manny gets out of the army and returns to abuse her some more. But she really, really loves Manny so she takes him back. Oscar steals his uncle's gun and stands outside Manny's apartment building all night, psyching himself up to shoot the guy. But the confrontation never happens. Oscar leaves for Rutgers University where even his popular sister Lola is unable to help him get any friends. Everyone continues to treat Oscar as a loser.
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