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Junot Diaz’s debut collection of short stories, Drown, appeared ten years ago and drew the kind of attention usually reserved for writers with more established résumés. A big part of that was the cool intensity of the prose, which chronicled the lives of adolescent boys living in hardscrabble communities in the Dominican Republic, or transplanted to equally challenging environments in New York and New Jersey. The stories were alternately grim and funny, and Diaz never condescended, making liberal use of native dialect and slang. So enthused were editors at the New Yorker that they named Diaz one of the twenty top writers for the twenty-first century. Something happened on the way to literary superstardom, however; a novel, A Cheater’s Guide to Love, was scheduled for release in 1997, but never appeared. Perhaps The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao has been salvaged from that earlier project, but who knows. Early indications are that this debut novel—a multicultural, multilingual tale of epic bad luck—more than justifies the decade-long wait. 952-920-0633; www.bn.com

Denis Johnson’s new novel — his first in nine years — continues the author’s studies of sympathy and redemption as integral parts of human physiology. Still, as in most of Johnson’s work, a feeling of desolation pervades. Set in the ’60s, each segment of Tree of Smoke: A Novel follows a year in the lives of the narrative’s several characters, all of whom are either fighting in the Vietnam War or dealing with its effects. Sympathy often comes with feeling sorry for a murderer, and redemption is found in a dive bar with air conditioning. Their various plights and salvations coalesce into a single American experience that Publishers Weekly calls “a closure [on the Vietnam War] that’s as good as we’ll ever get.”

There is Shakespearean language, with its grand soliloquies and sonnets. And then there is the language of David Mamet, who made his name by elevating everyday speech into an art form. This fall, The Jungle Theater brings those trademark machine-gun sentences, stutters, and profanities to the stage with Speed-the-Plow.

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Jungle Artistic Director Bain Boehlke directs this satire about a Hollywood producer who is torn between art and money when he’s given twenty-four hours to green-light either a spiritual, apocalyptic film (pitched by his gorgeous secretary) or a sex-and-violence-packed action flick (pitched by a close friend). Consider it a palate cleanser after the summer of Transformers and Spiderman 3. 612-822-7063.

Though she loves classics, Diane Paulus has a penchant for finding inspiration in the more theatrical aspects of pop culture. The New York City-based director recently staged Turandot in a professional wrestling ring, but she’s better known for her production of The Donkey Show, a disco adaptation of A Midsummer Night’s Dream. So it’s not surprising that fashion shows, what with all the elaborate costumes, makeup, and entrances and exits, became a recent and ripe subject for Paulus’s picking. By transplanting an ancient Japanese samurai narrative called Ronin 47 to the dog-eat-dog world of high fashion, Paulus has created a surprisingly family-friendly work in the style of Project Runway. Here’s an amusing tidbit from a production in which characters set out to out-design and out-strut one another: Instead of switching off their cell phones, theatergoers will use them, à la American Idol, to vote. Childrens Theatre, 612-874-0400.

If you happen to be wandering near the Walker some evening this month, do not be alarmed if you’re accosted by a young European wielding a video camera. This is merely part of the “War on Anonymity” waged by the Gob Squad, a performance art troupe whose members hail from the U.K. and Germany. One hour before each 9 p.m. performance, troupe members will take to the mean streets of Lowry Hill, where they will allow serendipity to take over as they incorporate unsuspecting passersby into their impromptu cinematic creation. Then they will hustle back to the Walker to treat their audience to Super Night Shot, a one-hour, four-screen showing of their uncut footage. We’ll be intrigued to see what kinds of material they can generate by provoking us supposedly modest Minnesotans. Walker Art Center, 612-375-7600.

The always irreverent and ever-theatrical indie-rock band Fort Wilson Riot created this five-part “indie-rock opera” (and album) about a nameless American journalist and his adventures in a mysterious foreign land. Enlisting the help of Jeremey Catterton, a stage director and friend from the University of Minnesota who now resides in London, the band has cobbled together a fictional travelogue based on the writings of Paul Bowles, the ex-pat author best known for The Sheltering Sky. Given the scarcity of collaborations between theater-makers and rockers, this won’t be your typical night at the theater—plus this production incorporates puppets, dancers, and video. As for the score for Idigaragua, one local music critic compared it to Sondheim and Beethoven—but these ears detect more the influence of Queen. Bedlam Theatre, 1501 S. Sixth St., Minneapolis; 612-341-1038.

When we entertain at home, we take for granted that we all partake in the same dishes, prepared in portions large enough to share. So isn’t it a bit odd, in this age of dining out as entertainment, for friends to gather at a restaurant and each order a different meal? It’s a very American way of eating, and it embodies those all-American values of freedom and rugged individualism—we each get what we want, without compromise.

But in other culinary cultures around the world, the gastronomical high points are dishes made for sharing: paella from Spain, Peking duck from China, and from Vietnam, a whole repertoire of dishes cooked at the table.

Peking duck is a rarity on Chinese restaurant menus, probably because it is so much trouble to prepare. One classic method, for example, involves inflating the bird carcass with a bicycle pump, then air-drying it for a day before roasting. It’s no surprise, then, that restaurants usually require customers to order a whole bird—enough to feed four—at least a day in advance. Before serving, the duck is traditionally carved into three courses: the skin, served with pancakes; the meat, stir-fried with vegetables; and the bones, either made into soup or sent home with the customer to use in homemade soup.

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I don’t know what shortcuts the chefs at Yummy use in their delicious version of this classic dish, but they offer a half-duck served as dinner in two courses, which can be ordered without advance reservations. (Whole ducks are served in three courses.) The half-duck makes an ample dinner for two, and at $17.95, it’s a steal.

The centerpiece of any Peking duck dinner is the crisp, flavorful skin and the fat pancakes of steamed dough. You brush the pancakes lightly with sweet hoisin paste, wedge morsels of skin and meat between the folds of the pancake, add a few shreds of scallion, and enjoy.

For the second course, Yummy offers a choice: a soup made with the chopped-up duck minus its skin, along with tofu and Chinese cabbage; or a stir-fry of boneless duck meat with Chinese greens. I strongly recommend the stir-fry, which puts the flavorful meat to better use—but note that ordering a whole duck gets you both courses.

Yummy offers another Chinese gastronomic specialty made for sharing: dim sum served from carts, seven days a week, in dozens of different varieties ranging from pork and shrimp dumplings to little plates of garlicky spare ribs or curried squid. You can order these all by yourself, of course, but the more companions you bring along, the more dishes you can sample.

Paella is Spain’s most celebrated culinary specialty, a garnished dish of saffron rice named after the flat-bottomed pan in which it’s prepared. It originated in Valencia, on the Mediterranean coast, and the official recipe, approved by the Head Chef’s Club of the Region of Valencia, is made with chicken, snails, and lima beans. But as paella’s popularity has spread, so have the variations. Locally Babalu, El Meson, Conga and La Bodega all offer versions—typically a paella a la valenciana, which combines meat and seafood, and most also offer an all-seafood paella marinera.

Babalu’s paella valenciana, made with chicken, mussels, clams, shrimp, and lobster, is a striking presentation: it arrives at table with a split lobster tail and a crisp-fried slice of plantain standing upright in a savory and aromatic bed of saffron rice. The quantities of mussels, shrimp, and clams are ample (and at $35.99 per person, including a salad, they should be). Babalu’s other attractions include a full bar, an extensive wine list strong on selections from Spain and Latin America, and a sexy nightclub ambiance that gets hotter as the night goes on. As we finished dinner there recently, the Monday-night crowd was just warming up for the weekly salsa competition, which the hostess explained with enthusiastic rotations of her hips.