After 11 years wandering in the wilderness, following the publication of his slender, cruelly promising story collection Drown, Díaz hauls off with massive, heaving, sparking tragicomedy starring Oscar, a dorky Dominican-American "social introvert who trembled with fear during gym class," and his mother and sister. Having escaped to New Jersey, they still suffer the manifold curses of the old country, still shiver in the chilly shadow of the departed Dominican dictator Rafael Trujillo.