Junot Diaz does not publish a book every third year, which is what the literary rat race gets many writers to do. This is not necessarily good or bad, though Diaz has gone on record urging writers to slow down. After all, having won a well-deserved Pulitzer with The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao, Diaz can afford to publish at his own pace. But, if he had less talent, the fleeting years would add up to what is sometimes called a ‘writer’s block’. Fortunately, that is not the case with Diaz: his third book, published five years after the last one, has been well worth the wait.