there’s a bluebird in my heart that
wants to get out
but I’m too tough for him,
I say, stay in there, I’m not going
to let anybody see
you.
there’s a bluebird in my heart that
wants to get out
but I pur whiskey on him and inhale
cigarette smoke
and the whores and the bartenders
and the grocery clerks
never know that
he’s
in there.

there’s a bluebird in my heart that
wants to get out
but I’m too tough for him,
I say,
stay down, do you want to mess
me up?
you want to screw up the
works?
you want to blow my book sales in
Europe?
there’s a bluebird in my heart that
wants to get out
but I’m too clever, I only let him out
at night sometimes
when everybody’s asleep.
I say, I know that you’re there,
so don’t be
sad.
then I put him back,
but he’s singing a little
in there, I haven’t quite let him
die
and we sleep together like
that
with our
secret pact
and it’s nice enough to
make a man
weep, but I don’t
weep, do
you?

This book is a gift to everyone who takes the time to read it. I haven’t felt so hammered by story and dialogue in a very long time, and ‘hammered’ is a good thing. I’ve been waiting a long time for someone this good to come along and now all I want to do is implore everyone I meet to read this book. It made me cry on the bus; the last thing to make me almost cry on the bus was the kid in front of me listening to Alexandra Burke do ‘Hallelujah’ through a crappy phone speaker. The horror.

This book makes me want to read more, and even if I’m only biding my time until the next Díaz book, and that can only be a good thing.