The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao

The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao is a 2007 novel by the Dominican American author Junot Díaz. Its title character is a young overweight Dominican American man obsessed with fantasy novels, superhero comics, and tabletop role-playing games. Using Spanish neologisms, magical realism, and references to late-20th-century nerd culture, Díaz weaves a multigenerational family saga chronicling life under the murderous Dominican dictator Rafael Trujillo and the subsequent Dominican diaspora to the United States. Widely praised as one of the greatest novels of the 21st century, The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction and the National Book Critics Circle Award. This study guide refers to the 2007 edition published by Riverhead Books.

Plot Summary

In Part 1, the narrator introduces readers to Oscar de León, an overweight Dominican American high schooler living in Paterson, New Jersey, in the late 1980s. Unlike most of his Dominican peers, Oscar loves The Lord of the Rings, Dungeons & Dragons, and other staples of 20th-century nerd culture. Although Oscar obsesses over women, he is sorely lacking in confidence and thus hasn’t kissed a girl since he was seven years old. His father abandoned the family when Oscar was a baby, and his cancer-stricken mother, Belicia, is mystified by him. His one source of emotional support is his older sister, Lola. According to the narrator, Oscar, like the rest of his family, is a victim of fukú, a Caribbean curse unleashed on Hispaniola with the arrival of Christopher Columbus in 1492.

After introducing Oscar, the narrative flashes back to the Dominican Republic in the late 1950s during the waning days of dictator Rafael Leónidas Trujillo Molina’s oppressive regime. Belicia is an adolescent living with her father’s cousin, La Inca. She was orphaned a few weeks after her birth when her father, a prominent doctor named Abelard Cabral, was imprisoned by Trujillo under vague pretenses. She bounced around a series of abusive foster families for nine years until La Inca finally tracked her down in a remote rural area. When La Inca found her, Belicia was locked in a chicken coop with life-threatening burns on her back.

At the age of 16, Belicia meets and falls in love with “the Gangster,” a sharp-dressed man in his thirties who organizes criminal activity on behalf of Trujillo. After a few months of what Belicia perceives to be a blissful relationship, she becomes pregnant with the Gangster’s child. Belicia then learns that the Gangster is married; not only that, but his wife is Trujillo’s sister, La Fea. Two of La Fea’s henchmen kidnap Belicia, drive her to the canefields outside the city, and beat severely, resulting in a miscarriage. With Belicia’s life still at risk, La Inca arranges for the young woman to be sent to New York.

In the following chapter, the narrator reveals himself to be a Dominican American college student at Rutgers-New Brunswick named Yunior. A self-stylized ladies’ man and a weightlifter, Yunior is a friend of Lola, with whom he once had a brief romantic fling. After Oscar nearly kills himself over a girl by drinking two bottles of 151, Yunior agrees to be Oscar’s roommate and to keep an eye on him while Lola is studying abroad in Spain. At first, Yunior views Oscar as a project. Four times a week, he forces Oscar out of bed at six a.m. to go running. After a few weeks, however, Oscar gives up, creating a rift between the two young men. On Halloween, when Oscar dresses as television’s Doctor Who, Yunior calls him an anti-gay slur, adding that he looks like Oscar Wilde. Yunior’s friend mishears this as “Oscar Wao,” and from then on, that is Oscar’s nickname. At the end of the school year, Yunior moves out of Oscar’s dorm.

After falling in love with a young Puerto Rican goth woman, Oscar catches her having sex with another student, which sends him into an emotional spiral. At the end of the semester, on his last night living with Yunior, Oscar gets very drunk and jumps off a 77-foot bridge. He lands on a garden divider and survives the fall with two broken legs. A few months later, Yunior rekindles his relationship with Lola and moves back in with Oscar.

In Part 2, Yunior chronicles the downfall of Dr. Abelard Cabral, Belicia’s wealthy father. In the 1940s, when Abelard’s oldest daughter, Jacquelyn, grows into a great beauty, she becomes a target for the lecherous Trujillo. Against the advice of his friends, Abelard stops taking Jacquelyn to presidential events, even when Trujillo demands her presence. One day, Abelard is arrested for allegedly slandering Trujillo’s name. He is sentenced to 18 years in prison while his wife Socorro is pregnant with Belicia. Shortly after giving birth, Socorro walks into oncoming traffic and is killed by a truck. The family is split up, and the infant Belicia disappears into a loose foster system of distant relatives and total strangers for nine years until La Inca finds her.

In the third and final part, a now-graduated Oscar joins his family on a vacation to the Dominican Republic. There, he falls in love with Ybón Pimentel, a sex worker in her thirties. Although Ybón has genuine affection for Oscar, she is also dating a dangerous police capitán. When the capitán catches Ybón drunkenly giving Oscar a kiss—his first since the age of seven—the capitán has two of his underlings drive Oscar to the canefields and nearly beat him to death.

Undeterred and hopelessly in love with Ybón, Oscar flies back to the Dominican Republic in the hope of whisking her away. For almost a month, Ybón rejects his advances out of fear that the capitán will kill them both. Then, on the 27th day of his trip, the capitán’s underlings drive Oscar back to the canefields and shoot him to death.

According to Yunior, Oscar sent a final letter to Lola prior to his death. In it, he reveals that he and Ybón shared one romantic weekend together in those 27 days, during which Oscar had sex for the first time.