1  

1  

Impressionism and Junot Diaz’s This is How You Lose Her

By Sean McGowan

When he mentioned the “abominable interests of sex” and defended their place in literature

among the most basic of human failings, it is difficult to imagine that Ford Maddox Ford could have had

in mind resembling “a big Dominican ass that seems to exist in a fourth dimension beyond jeans” (Diaz,

47). Yet this line sits unabashedly in Junot Diaz’s This is How You Lose Her, and seems not only

permissible but necessary, functioning as an integral piece of a whole, a small brushstroke in a more

complex and singular portrait of male infidelity. Diaz is Ford’s “self conscious artist” for a new century,

crafting honest and unpretentious prose that makes no attempt to strive for didacticism or an elite

readership. It does not claim to speak for all men, but certainly speaks for more than one, unifying

sucios and assholes in their blunders and shortcomings while giving readers the simple and arresting

“pleasure of coming into contact with [their] temperament” (Ford, 198).

It is through these characters that Diaz’s stories find their voice and strength. He introduces them

in the manner of a model impressionist, down to their first spoken words. When, in the first lines of the

collection, the narrator of The Sun, the Moon, the Stars preemptively assures the reader, “I’m not a bad

guy. I know how that sounds – defensive, unscrupulous – but it’s true,” one becomes acutely aware of

exactly the sort of chap who feels the need to begin his stories in this way (Diaz, 1). Diaz conveys

incredibly subtle and idiosyncratic pieces of this man’s character through his speech alone; he encodes

the character’s self-conscious vernacular with evidence of many indistinct traits, to which more

traditional styles of narration often fail to do justice. His narrative style does not elucidate in any

traditional sense, and rarely decelerates from its breakneck pace for explanation or introspection. The

narrator is no more indebted to the reader than he would be to his barber or bartender. Thus, before one

is able to finish wondering what sort of person uses the word ‘unscrupulous’ within a few breaths of

 

 

2  

2  

“homegirl wrote her a fucking letter,” or refers to said homegirl as “a smelly bone,” he has moved on,

expecting the reader to have followed (Diaz 1).

As the narrative moves in this way, the reader continues to feel as if the words exist on some

plane beyond the page. They appear to possess a distinct and unique life that could not possibly exist in

any other style, sustained by absolute and often alarming honesty. The story moves with an unusual and

eccentric flow that is Diaz’s own, not quite scattered enough to be considered true stream of

consciousness, but still too fast paced and colloquial to conform to any traditional modes of narration.

Any attempt to place a label on this style, however, would be a disservice to the art itself, as it comes

into existence from a place of such sincere desire to tell a story; and in true impressionist fashion, it does

not bastardize itself by attempting anything else. When the narrator of The Sun, the Moon, the Stars

recounts his first encounter with Magda after she learns of his infidelity, he describes it as having

happened like “a five-train collision,” coating his admissions with a sort of tongue-in-cheek sardonic

humor as he realizes just how ridiculous his actions sound when put into words. With this style, there

comes a feeling of having heard the words he says rather than simply having read them that makes

Diaz’s voice incredibly unique, and which causes the reader to feel as if they’ve been told the story by a

real, breathing human being.

This human being, who serves as the primary subject for eight of the nine stories in the

collection, is the work’s highest and most amazing achievement with regard to impressionism. In

Yunior, one finds an incredibly confused and witty character, whose life can be examined in fragments

as the book progresses. As he speaks throughout the collection’s first story, it becomes clear that he is

telling these tales as if he were talking to somebody rather than simply writing them down for his own

therapeutic purposes or entertainment alone. In the all-important first impression that Diaz gives the

reader of Yunior, he preemptively defends his character, while stating plainly: “See, many months ago,

when Magda was still my girl, when I didn’t have to be careful about almost anything, I cheated on her

with this chick who had tons of eighties freestyle hair” (Diaz, 1). Perhaps against his or her will, a reader

 

 

3  

3  

cannot help but feel some sort of connection to Yunior, simply by virtue of having been given this

information is such a forthright and trusting way. Though he is admitting to something terrible, it is here

that the beginnings of the bond between Yunior and his reader, which only grows in intensity as the

collection progresses, are forged.

When he recounts his inability to console Magda after this admission, he does so in an equally

authentic way. Knowing that he is considered, by Magda and most likely even himself, “a typical

Dominican man: a sucio, an asshole,” one would assume that he is not the kind of man who is quick to

share his feelings or confide in anyone (Diaz, 1). Therefore, his vulnerable confessions do a great deal to

make him a sympathetic character to the reader. He says, “I was too sick to my stomach to even try. I sat

down next to her, grabbed her flailing arms, and said some dumb shit like You have to listen to me,

Magda” (Diaz, 4). In creating this line as it is, Diaz follows the tenets of impressionism perfectly. He

writes just as Ford suggests; the speech is written only as it is remembered, and not recorded verbatim,

as doing so would detract from the authenticity of the sentiment, and cause the reader to “lose some of

the illusion of the good faith of the narrator” (Ford 203). The moment between Yunior and Magda must

have been one of terrible and intense emotional confusion, and not one in which the narrator would pay

close attention the words leaving his mouth.

It is these subtle nuances of Yunior’s speech that best characterize him. In referring to his words

to Magda as “some dumb shit,” he entertains the reader as he would one of his ‘boys,’ and subtly admits

to a sense of shame and remorse for his wrongdoing at the same time. It is difficult then, because of this

colloquial and flowing style of narrative, to pick out singular sentences or phrases, as each one is

strengthened by those around it. Every line derives a large portion of its meaning from those that come

before and those that will come after it to form one cohesive unit. Reading Diaz’s prose is, in this way,

not unlike listening to music. Similar to notes in a melody, his words are, as Ford puts it “a thing

altogether momentary,” graceful in their ephemerality, rising to the reader’s consciousness and gradually

falling away to be enjoyed in the context of Yunior’s character (Ford, 202). Any one note, taken out of

 

 

4  

4  

its musical context and heard independent of the original melody, loses something, having been deprived

of the weight that the remaining notes gave it. Thus, the seemingly vulgar reference to his consolation of

Magda as “some dumb shit” cannot be fully understood without consideration of the previous

bewildered, colloquial prose that led up to it, just as the crescendos of Beethoven’s Ode to Joy cannot be

fully enjoyed without first hearing the four minutes of swelling strings that precede it.

In having Yunior tell his story in this casual manner, Diaz actually captures two moments with

the same impressionist style. While the first simply involves the events of the story as it is told, the

actual telling of the story becomes a moment all its own. It is this second aspect of the stories that

reveals itself to be most interesting, and is exemplified beautifully in the final story, The Cheater’s

Guide to Love. In it, the divide between Yunior the character and Yunior the narrator is all but closed

completely, providing the clearest look at the “super-imposed emotions” that have characterized him

thus far (Ford, 203). Here, Diaz gives the reader vivid and unaltered insight into the mind and heart of

the writer and narrator, who has referred to Yunior as ‘you,’ throughout the book, speaking to various

past versions of himself. It is a sort of reveal that is reminiscent of finally dropping a curtain to find the

Wizard of Oz, as the reader is finally faced with the voice that has narrated Yunior’s tales of lust and

longing throughout the work.

Yet simultaneously, another story is told, and the reader learns how the book came to be. It is a

perfect example of Ford’s explanation of impressionist storytelling, in which telling a story is like

looking “through glass so bright that whilst you perceive through it a landscape or a backyard, you are

aware that, on its surface, it reflects a face of a person behind you” (Ford, 203). Updating and refreshing

impressionism as a literary method, Diaz has written a collection of stories in which Yunior, as a writer,

‘looks out a window’ at Yunior the character to tell stories from his past, and finally arrives at this final

one, in which the person he sees outside looks no different than his own reflection.

At the very beginning of the story, he refers to a past version of himself, from whom he is now

five years removed, as “a totally batshit cuero who didn’t ever empty his e-mail trash can,” again

 

 

5  

5  

speaking in a voice that is unmistakably Yunior’s (Diaz, 179). Of all the possible ways to describe the

intricate and subconscious motivations for unfaithfulness, Diaz chooses these artfully, knowing exactly

the type of audience true art should be directed toward. He does not attempt at any point to seek out or

explicate any moral justification for Yunior’s actions, rather recounting them and the consequences he

suffers as a result of them for “the kind of peasant intelligence that the artist needs for his audience”

(Ford, 213). He continues to tell the story with equally careful language, conveying incredibly

meaningful sentiments of loneliness and despair in terse, casual language. He does not set scenes by

describing his apathetic depression with the long, drawn out descriptions of emotion one might expect

from prose concerning a person in such a state. Instead, sentences such as, “A white grandma screams at

you at a traffic light and you close your eyes until she goes away” convey more suffering than any

number of adjectives or pages would be able to (Diaz, 185). Diaz is completely in control of the words

he uses, and thus feels no need to “exasperate so that [he] may better enchant” (Ford 213).

As the story ends, the entire collection comes into focus as a sort of meditation on writing itself.

Diaz, like his alter ego, is an artist who is interested in conveying his honest and forthright art in the

purest form possible. As the gap between the author and his subject closes with the story’s final scene,

he presents what is perhaps the most beautifully written line in the book, unaltered from form in which it

first came to him. He introduces the hauntingly profound notion that “The half-life of love is forever,” as

a stray line, conceived in a moment of pure inspiration. He does not attempt to fit it into any other story

as one often does with these first ideas, as he appears to have realized that doing so would negate its

beauty and simplicity. In keeping the line separate, he immortalizes his first impression of it within the

pages of the story, allowing it to remain inextricably bound to the moment that inspired it.

 

 

6  

6