Sunday Short: 'The Cheater's Guide to Love' by Junot Diaz

Your girl catches you cheating. (Well, actually she’s your fiancée, but hey, in a bit it so won’t matter.) She could have caught you with one sucia, she could have caught you with two, but because you’re a totally batshit cuero who never empties his e-mail trash can, she caught you with fifty! Sure, over a six-year period, but still. Fifty fucking girls? God damn! Maybe if you’d been engaged to a super-open-minded blanquita you could have survived it—but you’re not engaged to a super-open-minded blanquita. Your girl is a bad-ass salcedense who doesn’t believe in open anything; in fact, the one thing she warned you about, that she swore she would never forgive, was cheating. I’ll put a machete in you, she promised. And, of course, you swore you wouldn’t do it. You swore you wouldn’t. You swore you wouldn’t.

And you did.

 I've talked a lot about Junot Diaz on here before, and he really is one of my favourite authors. He has such a perfect way of capturing the best and worst in people, in relationships, in moments. The Cheater's Guide to Love is an embodiment of all those things, anchored in Diaz's pretty perfect prose.

You can read 'The Cheater's Guide to Love' over at The New Yorker website here.