Coffee with a canine: Theresa Kaminski & Hugo

Featured at Coffee with a Canine: Theresa Kaminski & Hugo.

The author, on how she and Hugo were united:

Not long after our golden retriever died, we started thinking about a new dog. We wanted a very different breed so we wouldn’t feel tempted to make comparisons between old dog and new. I started looking at various animal rescue organizations and my first choice was a greyhound, which my son and husband nixed. Then I found a small animal rescue organization that was adopting out two adult bassets and their six offspring. (In the case of bassets, “small” is a bit of a misnomer. They are short, but long and hefty.) The bassets...[read on]

About Kaminski's new book, Angels of the Underground, from the publisher:

When the Japanese began their brutal occupation of the Philippines in January 1942, 76,000 ill and starving Filipino and American troops tried to hold out on Bataan and Corregidor. That spring, after having been forced to surrender, most of those men were thrown into Japanese POW camps while dozens of others slipped away to organize guerrilla forces. During the three violent years of occupation that followed, Allied sympathizers in Manila smuggled supplies and information to the guerrillas and the prisoners.

Theresa Kaminski's Angels of the Underground tells the story of four American women who were part of this little-known resistance movement: Gladys Savary, Claire Phillips, Yay Panlilio, and Peggy Utinsky - all incredibly adept at skirting occupation authorities to support the Allied war effort. The nature of their clandestine work meant that the truth behind their dangerous activities had to be obscured as long as the Japanese occupied the Philippines. If caught, they would be imprisoned, tortured, and executed. Throughout the Pacific War, these four women remained hidden behind a veil of deceit and subterfuge.

An impressive work of scholarship grounded in archival research, FBI documents, and memoirs, Angels of the Underground illuminates the complex political dimensions of the occupied Philippines and its importance to the war effort in the Pacific. Kaminski's narrative sheds light on the Japanese-occupied city of Manila; the Bataan Death March and subsequent incarceration of American military prisoners in camps O'Donnell and Cabanatuan; and the formation of guerrilla units in the mountains of Luzon.

Angels of the Underground offers the compelling tale of four ordinary American women propelled by extraordinary circumstances into acts of heroism, and makes a significant contribution to the work on women's wartime experiences. Through the lives of Gladys, Yay, Claire, and Peggy, who never wavered in their belief that it was their duty as patriotic American women to aid the Allied cause, Kaminski highlights how women have always been active participants in war, whether or not they wear a military uniform.

Learn more about Angels of the Underground at the Oxford University Press website.

The Page 99 Test: Angels of the Underground.

Writers Read: Theresa Kaminski.

My Book, The Movie: Angels of the Underground.

Coffee with a Canine: Theresa Kaminski & Hugo.

--Marshal Zeringue

Pg. 99: Theresa Kaminski's "Dr. Mary Walker's Civil War"

Featured at the Page 99 Test: Dr. Mary Walker's Civil War: One Woman's Journey to the Medal of Honor and the Fight for Women's Rights by Theresa Kaminski.

About the book, from the publisher:

“I will always be somebody.”

This assertion, a startling one from a nineteenth-century woman, drove the life of Dr. Mary Edwards Walker, the only American woman ever to receive the Medal of Honor. President Andrew Johnson issued the award in 1865 in recognition of the incomparable medical service Walker rendered during the Civil War. Yet few people today know anything about the woman so well-known--even notorious--in her own lifetime. Theresa Kaminski shares a different way of looking at the Civil War, through the eyes of a woman confident she could make a contribution equal to that of any man. She takes readers into the political cauldron of the nation’s capital in wartime, where Walker was a familiar if notorious figure. Mary Walker’s relentless pursuit of gender and racial equality is key to understanding her commitment to a Union victory in the Civil War. Her role in the women’s suffrage movement became controversial and the US Army stripped Walker of her medal, only to have the medal reinstated posthumously in 1977.

Visit Theresa Kaminski's website.

The Page 99 Test: Angels of the Underground.

Writers Read: Theresa Kaminski (January 2016).

My Book, The Movie: Angels of the Underground.

Coffee with a Canine: Theresa Kaminski & Hugo.

The Page 99 Test: Dr. Mary Walker's Civil War.

--Marshal Zeringue

What is Theresa Kaminski reading?

Featured at Writers Read: Theresa Kaminski, author of Angels of the Underground: The American Women who Resisted the Japanese in the Philippines in World War II.

Her entry begins:

I adore historical fiction, and I’m usually reading two novels at once (one upstairs, one down). I envy the license novelists have with characters and plot, and marvel at their inventiveness with time period and setting. Kate Atkinson’s A God in Ruins, the tender, melancholy story of World War II veteran Teddy Todd, is a sublime example. It’s a knockout follow-up to Life After Life, which, like A God in Ruins, makes such astonishing use of 20th century history. That book is...[read on]

About Angels of the Underground, from the publisher:

When the Japanese began their brutal occupation of the Philippines in January 1942, 76,000 ill and starving Filipino and American troops tried to hold out on Bataan and Corregidor. That spring, after having been forced to surrender, most of those men were thrown into Japanese POW camps while dozens of others slipped away to organize guerrilla forces. During the three violent years of occupation that followed, Allied sympathizers in Manila smuggled supplies and information to the guerrillas and the prisoners.

Theresa Kaminski's Angels of the Underground tells the story of four American women who were part of this little-known resistance movement: Gladys Savary, Claire Phillips, Yay Panlilio, and Peggy Utinsky - all incredibly adept at skirting occupation authorities to support the Allied war effort. The nature of their clandestine work meant that the truth behind their dangerous activities had to be obscured as long as the Japanese occupied the Philippines. If caught, they would be imprisoned, tortured, and executed. Throughout the Pacific War, these four women remained hidden behind a veil of deceit and subterfuge.

An impressive work of scholarship grounded in archival research, FBI documents, and memoirs, Angels of the Underground illuminates the complex political dimensions of the occupied Philippines and its importance to the war effort in the Pacific. Kaminski's narrative sheds light on the Japanese-occupied city of Manila; the Bataan Death March and subsequent incarceration of American military prisoners in camps O'Donnell and Cabanatuan; and the formation of guerrilla units in the mountains of Luzon.

Angels of the Underground offers the compelling tale of four ordinary American women propelled by extraordinary circumstances into acts of heroism, and makes a significant contribution to the work on women's wartime experiences. Through the lives of Gladys, Yay, Claire, and Peggy, who never wavered in their belief that it was their duty as patriotic American women to aid the Allied cause, Kaminski highlights how women have always been active participants in war, whether or not they wear a military uniform.

Learn more about Angels of the Underground at the Oxford University Press website.

The Page 99 Test: Angels of the Underground.

Writers Read: Theresa Kaminski.

--Marshal Zeringue

Pg. 99: Theresa Kaminski's "Angels of the Underground"

Featured at the Page 99 Test: Angels of the Underground: The American Women who Resisted the Japanese in the Philippines in World War II by Theresa Kaminski.

About the book, from the publisher:

When the Japanese began their brutal occupation of the Philippines in January 1942, 76,000 ill and starving Filipino and American troops tried to hold out on Bataan and Corregidor. That spring, after having been forced to surrender, most of those men were thrown into Japanese POW camps while dozens of others slipped away to organize guerrilla forces. During the three violent years of occupation that followed, Allied sympathizers in Manila smuggled supplies and information to the guerrillas and the prisoners.

Theresa Kaminski's Angels of the Underground tells the story of four American women who were part of this little-known resistance movement: Gladys Savary, Claire Phillips, Yay Panlilio, and Peggy Utinsky - all incredibly adept at skirting occupation authorities to support the Allied war effort. The nature of their clandestine work meant that the truth behind their dangerous activities had to be obscured as long as the Japanese occupied the Philippines. If caught, they would be imprisoned, tortured, and executed. Throughout the Pacific War, these four women remained hidden behind a veil of deceit and subterfuge.

An impressive work of scholarship grounded in archival research, FBI documents, and memoirs, Angels of the Underground illuminates the complex political dimensions of the occupied Philippines and its importance to the war effort in the Pacific. Kaminski's narrative sheds light on the Japanese-occupied city of Manila; the Bataan Death March and subsequent incarceration of American military prisoners in camps O'Donnell and Cabanatuan; and the formation of guerrilla units in the mountains of Luzon.

Angels of the Underground offers the compelling tale of four ordinary American women propelled by extraordinary circumstances into acts of heroism, and makes a significant contribution to the work on women's wartime experiences. Through the lives of Gladys, Yay, Claire, and Peggy, who never wavered in their belief that it was their duty as patriotic American women to aid the Allied cause, Kaminski highlights how women have always been active participants in war, whether or not they wear a military uniform.

Learn more about Angels of the Underground at the Oxford University Press website.

The Page 99 Test: Angels of the Underground.

--Marshal Zeringue

Pg. 99: Theresa Kaminski's "Queen of the West"

Featured at the Page 99 Test: Queen of the West: The Life and Times of Dale Evans by Theresa Kaminski.

About the book, from the publisher:

This is the first full-length biography of this mid-twentieth century multi-faceted star. It is the first book to use biography to chart the broad sweep of changes in women’s lives during the twentieth century, and to have popular music, movies, and television shows as its backdrops. The glitter of country music, the glamour of Hollywood, and the grit of the early television industry are all covered. It is the first book to draw from never-before-seen sources (especially business records and fan mail) at the newly-opened Roy Rogers-Dale Evans collections at the Autry Museum of the American West. One of the central tensions of Dale’s life revolved around chasing the elusive work/family balance, making her story instantly relatable to women today, In addition to fame, Dale longed for a happy, stable, family life. Her roles and wife and mother became the foundation for her public persona: the smart, smiling, cheerful cowgirl. Unusual for its time were Dale Evans’s attempts to control the trajectory of her career at a time when men dominated decision-making in the entertainment fields.

Visit Theresa Kaminski's website.

Coffee with a Canine: Theresa Kaminski & Hugo.

The Page 99 Test: Dr. Mary Walker's Civil War.

The Page 99 Test: Angels of the Underground.

Writers Read: Theresa Kaminski (January 2016).

My Book, The Movie: Angels of the Underground.

The Page 99 Test: Queen of the West.

--Marshal Zeringue

Theresa Kaminski's "Angels of the Underground," the movie

Featured at My Book, The Movie: Angels of the Underground: The American Women who Resisted the Japanese in the Philippines in World War II by Theresa Kaminski.

The entry begins:

I can’t decide if Angels of the Underground needs to be a movie or a miniseries--maybe a miniseries that becomes so popular its fans demand a feature movie.

Whether translated to big screen or small, Patricia Clarkson must play Margaret (Peggy) Utinsky. A nurse by profession, Peggy organized the Miss U underground network in Manila, masking her true nationality to avoid internment. She was clever, stubborn, and temperamental. Clarkson and Peggy are visually similar, both blonde and fair, petite but strong, with interesting, attractive faces. Clarkson, queen of indie movies (Pieces of April, The Station Agent, and Lars and the Real Girl), shimmers in any role she takes on, and she would be particularly good at capturing Peggy’s...[read on]

Learn more about Angels of the Underground at the Oxford University Press website.

The Page 99 Test: Angels of the Underground.

Writers Read: Theresa Kaminski.

My Book, The Movie: Angels of the Underground.

--Marshal Zeringue

Five best: novels about immigrants in America

Matthew Kaminski, a member of the Wall Street Journal’s editorial board, named his five favorite novels about immigrants in America for his newspaper.

One title on the list:

The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao
by Junot Diaz
Riverhead, 2007

The eponymous hero of Junot Diaz’s breakout novel is a fat, warm, complex, lonely, sex-starved, sci-fi-obsessed New Jersey kid who happens to be a Dominican. We’re in Philip Roth ­territory here. Wao’s angst is that of an adolescent (where does he, a ­Dominican “GhettoNerd,” fit in?) and of an immigrant (ditto). Diaz peppers his book with Spanish phrases and ­pop-dweeb trivia without explaining ­either, which in no way hurts the book. As for sections of the novel set back in the native land of Oscar’s mother, extended footnotes are provided “for those of you who missed your ­mandatory two seconds of Dominican history.” The novel is a rare ­accomplishment, a serious literary work with “street” appeal.

Read about another book on Kaminski's list.

Also see Junot Díaz's most important books and the Page 99 Test: The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao.

--Marshal Zeringue

Six top books with overweight protagonists

Jami Attenberg's new novel is The Middlesteins.

Jonathan Franzen (author of Freedom) says: “The Middlesteins had me from its very first pages, but it wasn’t until its final pages that I fully appreciated the range of Attenberg’s sympathy and the artistry of her storytelling.”

At The Week magazine Attenberg named her six favorite books with overweight protagonists.  One title on the list:

The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao by Junot Díaz

This novel rocked me when it came out. Oscar is an overweight Dominican kid from Paterson, N.J., who is obsessed with comic books and science fiction. Though he lives a life of the mind initially, he ends up leading an epic adventure. This book is about being a hero.

Read about another entry on the list.

The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao also appears among Brooke Hauser's six top books about immigrants, Sara Gruen's six favorite books, Paste magazine's list of the ten best debut novels of the decade (2000-2009), and The Millions' best books of fiction of the millenium. The novel is one of Matthew Kaminski's five favorite novels about immigrants in America and is a book that made a difference to Zoë Saldana.

The Page 99 Test: Junot Díaz's The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao.

--Marshal Zeringue

Books that made a difference to Zoë Saldana

A few months ago the actor Zoë Saldana (Avatar) told O, The Oprah Magazine about a few books that made a difference to her.

One book on her list:

The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao
by Junot Díaz

Background:
Oscar Wao is the lowest on the food chain: He is not white, he is not thin, he is not attractive, he is not completely American. Díaz is trying to put you in Oscar's place so you can understand his invisibility. Oscar falls for an older woman who's involved in a situation that can get him killed. Why does he risk it? Because she is the only person who really sees him.

Why she chose it:
Díaz talks about Dominicans and what makes us unique—especially the women. I grew up surrounded by Dominican women who were goddesses. My mother is the heroine of my life, and so are my grandmother and my great-grandmother. The women are the strongest, and Díaz caught that. I also think at certain points in your life, you feel utterly alone and completely invisible. You understand your own impotence, how there's sometimes nothing you can do about it. And that's Oscar.

Read about another book that made a difference to Saldana.

The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao also appears on Paste magazine's list of the ten best debut novels of the decade (2000-2009) and among The Millions' best books of fiction of the millenium. The novel is one of Matthew Kaminski's five favorite novels about immigrants in America.

See Junot Díaz's most important books and the Page 99 Test: The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao.

--Marshal Zeringue

Five top books that carry curses

Samantha Mabry's new novel is A Fierce and Subtle Poison.

At Tor.com she tagged five books that carry curses, including:

The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao by Junot Díaz (2007)

“Because no matter what you believe, fukú believes in you.” The opening pages of Díaz’s novel are dedicated to explaining the curse that perpetually plagues the Wao family. This particular curse, otherwise known as fukú, apparently originated in Africa and traveled across the Atlantic to sink its fangs into the modern-day Dominican Republic. It’s tied to ancient history and a more recent bad man, and it’s carried through generations (sorry, Oscar). It’s inescapable, rears its head during all stages of Oscar’s short life, causing him all manner of personal turmoil, and can certainly be tied to his eventual demise.

Read about another entry on the list.

The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao appears among Susan Barker's top ten novels with multiple narratives, BBC Culture's twelve greatest novels of the 21st century, Emily Temple's fifty greatest debut novels since 1950, Niall Williams's top ten bookworms' tales, Chrissie Gruebel's nine best last lines in literature, Alexia Nader's nine favorite books about unhappy families, Jami Attenberg's top six books with overweight protagonists, Brooke Hauser's six top books about immigrants, Sara Gruen's six favorite books, Paste magazine's list of the ten best debut novels of the decade (2000-2009), and The Millions' best books of fiction of the millenium. The novel is one of Matthew Kaminski's five favorite novels about immigrants in America and is a book that made a difference to Zoë Saldana.

The Page 99 Test: The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao.

--Marshal Zeringue

Top 10 immigrants' tales

E. C. Osondu was born in Nigeria. He won the 2009 Caine Prize for African Writing, and his fiction has appeared in The Atlantic. He received his MFA from Syracuse University and currently teaches at Providence College in Rhode Island.

His debut story collection Voice of America was published by HarperCollins late last year.

At the Guardian he named his top ten immigrants' tales.

One title on the list:

Drown by Junot Díaz

I like the fact that the stories in this collection begin in the Dominican Republic and end in America. In a way the reader also becomes a virtual immigrant as he journeys with the characters. The mock-imperative tone used in the story "How to Date a Brown Girl (Black Girl, White Girl, or Halfie)" is laugh-out-loud funny and wise.

Read about another entry on the list.

Also see Matthew Kaminski's five best novels about immigrants in America.

--Marshal Zeringue

Ten of the best squirrels in literature

Elizabeth McKenzie's new novel is The Portable Veblen.

One of the author's ten top squirrels in literature, as shared at the Guardian:

Pnin by Vladimir Nabokov

As Professor Pnin bumbles about Waindell College, he is often shadowed by a squirrel, which, scholars agree, seems to serve as either psychic doppelganger or phantom of Pnin’s first love, murdered at Buchenwald, Mira Belochkin (whose name is close to the Russian for squirrel).

Read about another entry on the list.

Pnin is among W.B. Gooderham's ten favorite examples of book-giving in fiction and Matthew Kaminski's five best novels about immigrants in America, and Nabokov is on Ben Frederick's list of ten influential authors who came to the US as immigrants.

--Marshal Zeringue

Pg. 69: Suzanne Redfearn's "Moment in Time"

Featured at the Page 69 Test: Moment in Time: A Novel by Suzanne Redfearn.

About the book, from the publisher:

From the bestselling author of In an Instant comes a heartrending story about the power of friendship during the most challenging moments in life.

It’s been eight years since a tragic accident changed Mo Kaminski’s and Chloe Miller’s lives forever. Now in their midtwenties, they’re sharing an apartment in San Francisco and navigating the normal challenges of early adulthood. Along with their roommate, Hazel, they are making their marks on the world―Mo revolutionizing the news with her media start-up, Hazel using her big brain to anticipate the future, and Chloe rescuing abandoned strays in the city.

But when Hazel disappears after being sexually assaulted, Mo’s and Chloe’s lives are again suddenly ripped apart. And when the perpetrator turns up drugged and beaten, the mystery of where Hazel is deepens. Intensely worried and desperate to discover the truth, they set out to find Hazel and bring her home.

Mo and Chloe are no strangers to tragedy, but this journey will test them in ways they never imagined. The stakes are high; the future uncertain; the need for justice essential.

Will their commitment to their friend bring them closer together―or ultimately drive them apart?

Visit Suzanne Redfearn's website, Facebook page, and Twitter perch.

Coffee with a Canine: Suzanne Redfearn and Cooper.

My Book, The Movie: Hush Little Baby.

The Page 69 Test: Hush Little Baby.

The Page 69 Test: No Ordinary Life.

Writers Read: Suzanne Redfearn (February 2016).

My Book, The Movie: No Ordinary Life.

My Book, The Movie: In an Instant.

The Page 69 Test: In an Instant.

Q&A with Suzanne Redfearn.

My Book, The Movie: Hadley and Grace.

The Page 69 Test: Hadley & Grace.

Writers Read: Suzanne Redfearn.

The Page 69 Test: Moment in Time.

--Marshal Zeringue

Seven top novels about family curses

Renée Branum has an MFA in Creative Nonfiction from the University of Montana and an MFA in Fiction from the Iowa Writers’ Workshop where she was a Truman Capote Fellow. Her work has appeared in The Georgia Review, Narrative Magazine, The Gettysburg Review, Brevity, Alaska Quarterly Review, and Best American Nonrequired Reading, among others. She was a recipient of a National Endowment for the Arts Prose Fellowship in 2020. She currently lives in Cincinnati, where she is pursuing a PhD in Fiction writing.

Branum's new novel is Defenestrate.

At Electric Lit she tagged seven stories "about myths and beliefs inherited from each generation," including:

The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao by Junot Díaz

It would be difficult to construct a reading list about family curses without including this one. Díaz is meticulous about shaping the origins and path of the generational curse that wreaks havoc on Oscar’s chances of finding love and success. At turns playful and heartbreaking, this novel’s scope is frequently epic in feeling, illustrating the power of storytelling to shape an inherited sense of self even across decades and nations.

Read about another entry on the list.

The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao appears among Wajahat Ali's eleven books on loving a country that doesn’t love you back, Carrie V Mullins's eleven favorite unreliable narrators, Saskia Lacey's fifty incredible literary works destined to become classics, Samantha Mabry's five books that carry curses, Susan Barker's top ten novels with multiple narratives, BBC Culture's twelve greatest novels of the 21st century, Emily Temple's fifty greatest debut novels since 1950, Niall Williams's top ten bookworms' tales, Chrissie Gruebel's nine best last lines in literature, Alexia Nader's nine favorite books about unhappy families, Jami Attenberg's top six books with overweight protagonists, Brooke Hauser's six top books about immigrants, Sara Gruen's six favorite books, Paste magazine's list of the ten best debut novels of the decade (2000-2009), and The Millions' best books of fiction of the millenium. The novel is one of Matthew Kaminski's five favorite novels about immigrants in America and is a book that made a difference to Zoë Saldana.

The Page 99 Test: The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao.

--Marshal Zeringue

The twenty best campus novels, ranked

Emily Temple is a senior editor at Lit Hub. Her first novel, The Lightness, will be published by William Morrow in 2020.

At LitHub she tagged--and ranked--the twenty best campus novels. Number two on the list:

Vladimir Nabokov, Pnin

Oh, it’s a campus classic, one of the earliest and best examples of the form (at least as we understand it today), so we really can’t do without it—but why would we ever want to do without our bumbling, hapless émigré Professor Timofey Pnin, who struggles through a series of academic struggles and foibles in high comedic fashion? It’s not the greatest novel Nabokov ever wrote, but it may be his most charming—his Orlando, if you will.

Read about another entry on the list.

Pnin is among Elizabeth McKenzie's ten best squirrels in literature, W.B. Gooderham's ten favorite examples of book-giving in fiction and Matthew Kaminski's five best novels about immigrants in America, and Nabokov is on Ben Frederick's list of ten influential authors who came to the US as immigrants.

--Marshal Zeringue

Top ten bookworms' tales

Niall Williams, a Dublin born writer, has lived in Kiltumper, Co Clare in the west of Ireland for the past 30 years. He is the author of eight novels, three stage plays, four non-fiction works and several screenplays. His new novel is History of the Rain.

One entry on his list of ten of the best books that manage to make heroes out of readers, as shared at the Guardian:

The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao by Junot Díaz

Perhaps the greatest recent addition to the humus of bookworms is Oscar Wao. Oscar's family came from the Dominican Republic to New Jersey. He is a Casanova when he is seven and for one full beautiful week loves two girls, Maritza and Olga. But once his ménage a trois collapses, Oscar retreats from the known world and inhabits another. This one is found in the novels of Lovecraft, Wells, Burroughs, Howard, Alexander, Herbert, Asimov, and others, as well as the comic books that make up the Marvel universe. In Díaz's brilliant narration Oscar's bookwormery and general nerdiness are transformed into something utterly cool.

Read about another entry on the list.

The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao also appears among Chrissie Gruebel's nine best last lines in literature, Alexia Nader's nine favorite books about unhappy families, Jami Attenberg's top six books with overweight protagonists, Brooke Hauser's six top books about immigrants, Sara Gruen's six favorite books, Paste magazine's list of the ten best debut novels of the decade (2000-2009), and The Millions' best books of fiction of the millenium. The novel is one of Matthew Kaminski's five favorite novels about immigrants in America and is a book that made a difference to Zoë Saldana.

The Page 99 Test: The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao.

--Marshal Zeringue

Nine knockout last lines in literature

At The Barnes & Noble Book Blog, Chrissie Gruebel tagged nine of the best last lines in literature, including:

“So this is what everybody’s always talking about. Diablo! If only I’d known. The beauty! The beauty!”
—Oscar Wao, The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao

Why it tears us up: The line is delivered posthumously (in a letter), and it just seems all the more sad that way. Wao’s all-too-brief life is unfair, and that fact is annoying.

Read about another line on the list.

The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao also appears among Alexia Nader's nine favorite books about unhappy families, Jami Attenberg's top six books with overweight protagonists, Brooke Hauser's six top books about immigrants, Sara Gruen's six favorite books, Paste magazine's list of the ten best debut novels of the decade (2000-2009), and The Millions' best books of fiction of the millenium. The novel is one of Matthew Kaminski's five favorite novels about immigrants in America and is a book that made a difference to Zoë Saldana.

The Page 99 Test: The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao.

--Marshal Zeringue

Brooke Hauser's 6 favorite books about immigrants

Brooke Hauser has written for the New York Times, Los Angeles Times, Allure, and Premiere, among other publications.

For several years, she covered the film industry as Writer-at-Large at Premiere, where she was also an editor. In 2005, her interest in profiling characters not usually featured in the mainstream media led her to the City section of the New York Times. For her first story, which was later optioned for a movie, she spent weeks chronicling the misadventures of a clique of Staten Island girls looking for love.

Since then, she has tried to dig deep and tread lightly in many different worlds, from New York’s juvenile justice system to Harlem’s spirited Baptist community.

The recently released The New Kids: Big Dreams Brave Journeys at a High School for Immigrant Teens is Hauser's first book.

One of her six favorite books about immigrants, as told to The Week magazine:

Netherland by Joseph O'Neill

O'Neill, who was born in Ireland and raised in Holland, has written one of the most memorable works of fiction about life in New York City post-9/11. The Dutch narrator is a financial analyst who rediscovers a love of cricket while befriending a wily Trinidadian expat. The novel exposes the personal connections formed and lost in the aftermath of a crisis.

Read about another novel on Hauser's list.

Also see E. C. Osondu's top 10 immigrants' tales and Matthew Kaminski's five favorite novels about immigrants in America.

--Marshal Zeringue

Top ten novels with multiple narratives

Susan Barker is the author of the novels Sayonara Bar (2005), The Orientalist and the Ghost (2008), and The Incarnations (2014). One of her top ten novels with multiple narratives, as shared at Publishers Weekly:

The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao by Junot Diaz

Centered on the ill-fated de Leon family, blighted (according to the narrator, Yunior) by a multi-generational curse, The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao moves back and forth between Oscar de Leon’s childhood in '70s and '80s New Jersey, to Oscar’s sister Lola’s teenage rebellion, to their mother Belico’s harsh life in Trujillo-era '50s and '60s Santo Domingo. Written by Yunior (a reluctant friend from Oscar’s student days at Rutgers) in energetic, idiosyncratically slangy prose, The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao is a tragicomic and exhilarating read.

Read about another entry on the list.

The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao appears among BBC Culture's twelve greatest novels of the 21st century, Emily Temple's fifty greatest debut novels since 1950, Niall Williams's top ten bookworms' tales, Chrissie Gruebel's nine best last lines in literature, Alexia Nader's nine favorite books about unhappy families, Jami Attenberg's top six books with overweight protagonists, Brooke Hauser's six top books about immigrants, Sara Gruen's six favorite books, Paste magazine's list of the ten best debut novels of the decade (2000-2009), and The Millions' best books of fiction of the millenium. The novel is one of Matthew Kaminski's five favorite novels about immigrants in America and is a book that made a difference to Zoë Saldana.

The Page 99 Test: The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao.

--Marshal Zeringue

The 25 all-time greatest Gen X books

The editors at Details developed a list of the 25 greatest Gen X books of all time.

One novel on their list:

The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao, Junot Díaz

Rumors and expectations abounded in the 11 nearly silent years between Díaz's legendary story collection Drown and Oscar Wao, but no one anticipated that a story about a virginal, obese Dominican nerd (and the generations-long family struggle that preceded him) could be written with such slangy exuberance, and explore so powerfully and originally the links between colonial politics, fantasy escapism, and the American immigrant experience.

Read about another book on the list.

The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao also appears on Paste magazine's list of the ten best debut novels of the decade (2000-2009) and among The Millions' best books of fiction of the millenium. The novel is one of Matthew Kaminski's five favorite novels about immigrants in America.

See Junot Díaz's most important books and the Page 99 Test: The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao.

--Marshal Zeringue