Dominican Reflections
The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao, Junot Diaz, 2007
Rutgers University 
Novel of a Dominican family living under a multi generation curse. The narrator is a skirt chasing young Dominican who falls in love with Lola the beautiful, smart, athletic popular daughter of the cursed family. Lola worries about her brother Oscar, overweight nerdy guy always falling for girls out of his reach. When the three leave Patterson N.J. for Rutgers University, Lola enlists the narrator to watch out for Oscar and try to teach him about girls and about life. He fails and Oscar tries to kill himself by jumping off the Trenton railroad bridge. He lands on a bush and ends up in the hospital. His mom and Lola decide to take Oscar to the Dominican Republic to try to bring him out of his depression. It works when he falls madly in love with the semi retired prostitute living next door. She is lonely and develops a brother sister relationship with Oscar and they spend a lot of time together. Unfortunately, her part time boy friend is a very jealous police captain whose buddies put Oscar back in the hospital. As soon as he can move, the family returns with Oscar to Patterson.
Rafael Leonidas Trujillo 1930 
The novel traces the origin of the family curse to the grandfather, a doctor with two beautiful daughters that catch the eye of dictator Trujillo who ruled the Dominican Republic from 1930 to 1961 when he was assassinated. The father refuses to bring his oldest daughter to a Trujillo party and is arrested. A third, very black, daughter is born after his arrest. She becomes the only surviving member of the cursed family and is the mother of Lola and Oscar. The novel starts out loaded with Spanish and English Dominican community colloquial expressions and the unfamiliar reader misses a lot. The author also provides long footnotes in the beginning giving a condensed history of the Dominican Republic. It then settles down and becomes quite readable and informative.
Dominican Republic Beach 