Junot's Wao Wows 'Em at the NBCC

Junot Díaz was awarded the 2007 National Book Critics Circle award for fiction last Thursday, for his first novel, The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao. We've got a free podcast of him reading from the novel during the Seminar this past January here. My reaction to reading the book (in which I make the same pun, apologies) is here.
This is great news for Mr. Díaz, and no doubt a relief for his publisher, Riverhead Books, who has received somewhat less approval for the work of its author Margaret B. Jones/Seltzer. She's the fraudulent memoirist exposed by the Times just one week after a fairly glowing review. As we approach next year's Seminar, Historical Fiction and The Search for Truth, I'll certainly be giving the fake memoir phenomenon some more thought. For now, congratulations to Junot for doing it right, weaving together historical fact, personal life, and straight imagination, in that time-tested vessel, the novel.