The Mambo Kings Play Songs of Love

Mambo Kings #1

by Oscar Hijuelos

When it was first published in 1989, The Mambo Kings Play Songs of Love became an international bestselling sensation, winning rave reviews and the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction. To celebrate its 20th anniversary, the Pulitzer Prize-winning novel that changed the landscape of American literature returns with a new afterword by Oscar Hijuelos.

Here is the story of the memorable Castillo brothers, from Havana to New York's Upper West Side. The lovelorn songwriter Nestor and his macho brother Cesar find success in the city's dance halls and beyond playing the rhythms that earn them their band's name, as they struggle with elusive fame and lost love in a richly sensual tale that has become a cultural touchstone and an enduring favorite.

Genres: Fiction, Historical Fiction, Music, Literary Fiction, Literature, Novels, New York

448 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1989

About the author

Oscar Hijuelos (born August 24, 1951) was an American novelist. He is the first Hispanic to win a Pulitzer Prize for Fiction.

Hijuelos was born in New York City, in Morningside Heights, Manhattan, to Cuban immigrant parents. He attended the Corpus Christi School, public schools, and later attended Bronx Community College, Lehman College, and Manhattan Community College before matriculating into and studying writing at the City College of New York (B.A., 1975; M.A. in Creative Writing, 1976). He then practiced various professions before taking up writing full time. His first novel, Our House in the Last World, was published in 1983 and received the 1985 Rome Prize, awarded by the American Academy in Rome. His second novel, The Mambo Kings Play Songs of Love, received the 1990 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction. It was adapted for the film The Mambo Kings in 1992 and as a Broadway musical in 2005.

Hijuelos has taught at Hofstra University and at Duke University.

Reviews

[Brina · Rating 5 out of 5]

As the weather heats up it is easy to envision oneself on a beach with a rum and Coke in hand. The preferred beverage in Cuba before Castro's take over, rum invokes images of Havana as a city teeming with night life and rivaling Miami as the gateway to Latin America. It is with this sensuous imagery at hand that I selected Oscar Hijuelos' Mambo Kings Play Songs of Love as the next book in my ongoing Pulitzer challenge. The first Hispanic to win the award, Hijuelos' steamy book transports its readers back to a classy time when Mambo and its musicians were indeed Kings.

Brothers Cesar and Nestor Castillo hailed from the Oriente province of Cuba. From the simple peasant class, neither had much of a future, especially with a demanding father who expected them to stay on the farm. One day Cesar heard a local band leader practicing, demanded lessons, and the rest is history. Soon, Cesar played his way out of Oriente to Santiago, Havana, and eventually New York. Regarded as a top band leader alongside Nestor, a gifted trumpet player, the brothers founded the Mambo Kings band and catapulted to the top of the Latin music circuit in New York during the late 1940s.

Leaving Cuba even before the revolution was not without its share of anguish. Cesar epitomized Hispanic machismo culture and bedded one woman after another. He tried his hand at marriage but grew restless, and his wife divorced him, forcing him to leave his daughter Mariela behind on the island. Nestor did not share his brother's cockiness. A introvert and brooding man, he fell for a pretty girl named Maria and engaged in a long affair with her, only to see her marry another man. Nestor never got over this heartbreak, even after marrying his wife Dolores in New York and having two children, Eugenio and Leticia. This torment the brothers felt lead them to write their one hit song-- Dulce Maria de mi Alma [Beautiful Maria of my Soul] that nearly lead them to stardom.

A chance meeting with Cuban star Desi Arnaz lead the brothers to perform Dulce Maria de mi Alma on the I Love Lucy Show. At the time, especially as Castro continued to gain power in Cuba, all Cubans living in the United States stuck close together, even Arnaz who had made it big as a Hollywood star. After this performance, Cesar dwelt on this episode for the rest of his life, reminiscing on his one shining moment and reminding all of his friends and acquaintances that he is the famous Mambo Kings who once performed with Desi Arnaz. Nestor tragically passed away a few years later leaving behind a young family, but Cesar continued to look fondly at this experience on television for better or worse.

Hijuelos writes this poignant tale as a two sided record complete with coda. He tells Cesar's story in flashback as both Cesar and his nephew Eugenio look back at a time when Cesar was the Mambo King of New York. In addition to leading a band, Cesar worked a full time day job to support himself and his sister-in-law and her family as well as his friends and musicians and a myriad of Cubans just off the boat. Cesar also oozed machismo until his dying day, bedding one woman after another in true Latin lover form. The prose dripped of sensuous love mixed with pain, of both love lost and the schism of Cubans in the United States and the island following the revolution. As I read this tale of lust and heartbreak, I kept singing Cuban hits such as Guantamera in my mind, setting Cesar Castillo's conflicted life to music. The Mambo King will be long remembered by me as I felt a twinge of sympathy for this man who could not relate to women except in bed while leading a conflicted life.

With luscious writing that is could also be construed as an homage to his native Cuba, Hijuelos has merited the Pulitzer for his poignant tale. A story of immigrants who brushed with fame, were scorned by love, and maintained their machismo Cuban culture throughout their lives, The Mambo Kings Play Songs of Love is a scintillating tale. I had previously read Hijuelos' The Fourteen Sisters of Emilio Montez O'Brien and as before was enamored by his writing. A worthy torch bearer as being the first Hispanic authored book to earn the Pulitzer, Mambo Kings Play Songs of Love is a jewel of a book for me at 4.5 sparkling stars.

[Jennifer nyc · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book was so sexual. I mean, as an experiment, I turned to four random pages after finishing it, and sure enough - all four pages, from three different character perspectives, were full of sexual description. I know this can make or break a book for some, so I thought I’d state that up front. However, I’m not sure I’d call it objectification, exactly. The main character is ruled by lust: a lust for music, women, alcohol, social vibrancy, and notoriety. His motto could be “Too much, too fast, too late at night.” His lens often zooms in with sexual appetite, but rarely with a cold eye, and usually doesn’t lose sight of the whole person. But there are some uncomfortable exceptions. What could be perceived as objectification, however, (both male and female, from both male and female minds), had me wondering if this Pulitzer Prize Winner of 1990 would even be considered for the prize in 2020.

I do think the fullness of this story was prize-worthy. Part of what made this so much fun was that it was an imagining of the life of two Cuban musicians who actually made a guest appearance on a single episode of “I Love Lucy” in the 1950s. Hijuelos did such a good job creating nuanced characters full of love and longing, that I found myself convinced he was writing about his family. Which, he may have been – they just weren’t the guys from the episode. Through these two musical brothers with opposite dispositions, we experience the postwar-Manhattan dance club scene, and the struggle to create a home in a foreign land while longing for what was left behind. The brothers feel like polar opposites – one demands to feel alive by throwing himself into experience, the other cannot separate from his internal longings. This creates the perfect mix for their musical fans and their personal relationship, but means that each man often misses what’s right in front of him – one, because he can’t move forward, the other because he can’t slow down.

[Claire · Rating 1 out of 5]

I cannot BELIEVE this book won a Pulitzer. I bought it because of the shiny red cover with the big silver medal-looking sticker on the front (yes, that is how I judge books). The Cuban history/living in New York as a Cuban/music scene perspective was interesting, but it was overshadowed by the long, long, LONG woe-is-me sad-sack self-destructive fatalistic characters who were, for the most part, unlikable and unrelatable, and the pages and pages of sex. Not sexy sex; DH Lawrence this is not. It's more like forensic sex. There are much better books about Cuban jazz musicians, I'm sure, if that's what you're in to. I almost never would label a book "DO NOT READ", even if I didn't particularly care for it. This book is one of the few. However, I'm apparently one of the only people who feels this way. The Pulitzer guys certainly didn't agree with me.

[Fabian · Rating 4 out of 5]

A plump, juicy, sexy tropical fruit of a novel!

Its immediately evident why it was awarded the Pulitzer Prize; as a matter of fact, it comes from a proud line of family sagas-- all of them conjoined fatefully with the history of our nation. The Castillo Bros. ("castle" siblings) are the Kings of their music and major purveyors of the Cuban-American Zeitgeist. Of course, the story is tragicomic... sad but not in a completely unfamiliar way. Yes, this one seems to have inspired later Pulitzer winners, such as "The Stone Diaries", "The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay", "Oscar Wao" & the music-heavy "A Visit from the Goon Squad."

[Olive Fellows (abookolive) · Rating 1 out of 5]

DNF - So disappointing. An extremely engaging six page intro leads into a choppy, entirely sex-focused story that fails to develop atmosphere or nostalgia the way the author intends. It felt like being stuck at a bar next to an old drunk dude wanting to tell you every detail of his life story: how he used to be a musician and slept with just about every chick in NYC at the time. Bully for you, guy. Can I leave now?

[Michael Finocchiaro · Rating 3 out of 5]

I did not have big hopes going into The Mambo Kings Play Songs of Love, I was hoping to be surprised. Unfortunately, there were only moments of surprise, but not enough for this one to vault over the three-star mark. It beat out Billy Bathgate for the 1990 Pulitzer and as I have not yet read that book, I have to assume it was mediocre and as there were no other runner-ups, that year must have been a downer literary speaking. Maybe they should have taken a closer look at Get Shorty or Hocus Pocus although perhaps stooping down to Jurassic Park would have been too low. In any case, the book was interesting but lacked, I don't know, a likable protagonist.

Nestor and Cesar Castillo are brothers from Cuba that arrive in New York riding the mamba wave in the 40s to become the Mambo Kings. They leave their families in Cuba: their abusive father, their doting mother, and in the case of Nestor an ex-lover which haunts him and in the case of Cesar, a wife and a daughter. Of the two, the younger Nestor is a shy trumpet player and Cesar est un flamboyant singer and multi-instrumentalist and dancer. The book is told from the perspective of the broken and dying Cesar from his room in the decrepit Hotel Splendor in Manhattan as he ruminates on his life while drinking it away. We learn the tragic stories of various musicians on the scene, killed over women, drugs, unpaid bills. Most of the narrative is in the third person, but there are first-person interruptions in parentheses and occasionally we step into the minds of Nestor and his unfortunate wife Delores as well.

There are some nice passages in these souvenirs:
"it's as if he's a kid again running through the center of Las Piñas at carnival and the porches of the houses are lit with huge lanterns and the balconies garlanded with ribbons and tapers and flowers, and where he runs past so many musicians, musicians everywhere on the street corners, on the church steps, on the porches of houses, and continuing on toward the plaza, where the big orchestra is set up; that's the trumpet he hears echoing in the arcades of his town as he passes the columns and the shadows of couples hidden behind them and charges down steps past a garden, through the crowds and the dancers, to the bandstand, where that trumpet player, obese in a white suit, head tilted back, blows music up into the sky, and this carries and bounces off the walls of another arcade in Havana, and he's blowing the trumpet now at three in the morning, reeling in circles and laughing after a night out at the clubs and brothels with friends and his brother, laughing with the notes that whip into empty dark spaces and bounce back, swirling inside him like youth." (p. 25).

If only all the text was like this, it would have been a better book. As it is, the text is mostly about how awful Cesar is with women: using and losing them one after another, his disregard of his daughter (despite half-efforts to get to know her is the ultimate failure to meet her when she is an adult).

There is some occasional insight that, as someone having grown up in Miami and having been very close to several Cuban families, I found appropriate in terms of how many Cubans deal with depression:"He didn't know what was going on. Cubans then (and Cubans now) didn't know about psychological problems. Cubans who felt bad went to their friends, ate and drank and went out dancing. Most of the time they wouldn't think about their problems. A psychological problem was part of someone's character. Cesar was un macho grande; Nestor, un infeliz. People who hurt bad enough and wanted cures expected these cures to come immediately. (p. 114). This goes far to explain, for me anyway, how this generation of Cuban immigrants became such hardcore conservatives and why there was so much spousal and child abuse (as shown in the book and bourne out in real life) in the community.

The key memory for Cesar and for Nestor is the moment that they meet Desi Arnaz and get a spot on the I Love Lucy show in 1955 to play Nestor's ballad "Beautiful Maria of My Soul" which gives them a temporary boost in their careers. The meeting is described in a typically Cuban way: "And then in the way that Cubans get really friendly, Arnaz and Cesar reinvented their pasts so that, in fact, they had probably been good friends." (p. 127) Perhaps, it is this idealism that doomed those who stayed in Cuba to accept a terrible regime under Castro and which pushed the migrants to the US to success while their unprocessed psychological problems pulled their politics hard-right?

Unfortunately, however, two years later, Nestor - still crushed by his undiagnosed depression because of his lost love in Havana - dies in a car crash. The rest of Cesar's life is a slow descent into alcoholism and escapism, and this is the real issue that I had with the book. I sort of liked Nestor, but really it was more out of pity than affection and Cesar is just the boisterous Cuban asshole that I saw and detested when I grew up in Miami. Even Delores was a depressing character that never rises above her station when truly she could have. All the meaningless sex (and there is a LOT of that) and discussions of Cesar's enormous prick got to be irritating as well.

In summary, this is a very melancholic book about extreme macho stereotypes that refuse to look in the mirror and take responsibility for their actions. "While [Nestor] was onstage and playing the solo to "Beautiful Maria", a bad sensation had started in his kneecap and risen slowly, rib by rib, through his chest and back before settling in his thoughts. It was the simple feeling that his desires somehow contradicted his purpose in his life, to write sad boleros, to lie sick in bed, to mourn long-past loves, to crave what he could never have." (p. 180). Ultimately, Nestor dies with that last thought and the reader is left to draw their own conclusions about the whole mess that the two brothers leave behind. I suppose that many of the situations relayed here by Hijuelos were auto-biographical, but I just found that the pace was grueling at times and that I never liked or wanted to like Cesar - especially 300+ pages of his rambling, self-pitying memoirs.

My rating of all the Pulitzer Winners: https://www.goodreads.com/list/show/1...

[Algernon · Rating 4 out of 5]

Looking at her, Nestor felt faint-hearted: she was more beautiful than the sea, than the morning light, than a wildflower field, and her whole body, agitated and sweaty from her struggles, gave off an aromatic female scent, somewhere between meat and perfume and ocean air, that assailed Nestor's nostrils, sank down into his body like mercury, and twisted in his gut like Cupid's naughty arrow. He was so shy that he couldn't look at her anymore, and she liked this, because men were always looking at her.
"My name is Maria," she told him

He is Nestor Castillo, a young man born on a farm and coming to Havana to become a musician, like his big brother Cesar. In the big city, he meets a beautiful woman, has a torid love affair with her, and then he loses her. While Cesar is a libertine who changes his women more often than his shirts, Nestor cannot recover from this first love affair, not even when he goes to New York, like many of his fellow Cuban artists, in the 1950'a at the height of the Mambo Craze in the American nightclubs, not even when he meets another beautiful Cuban immigrant and marries her, not even when, at the height of his succes, he sings with his brother in a Hollywood television programme about the pain of lost love in a melancholic bolero "Bella Maria de Mi Alma"

Nestor remains distant, taciturn, tormented by absences, missing not only Maria, but also the land of his birth and childhood. He is transformed into a symbol of the exiled soul: His continuing grief was a monument to gallego melancholy.. Like Nestor are most of his compatriots who work on poorly paid day jobs, struggle to raise families and to maintain the spirit of the homeland in an alien land:

Many of his friends were that way, troubled souls. They would always seem happy - especially when they'd talk about women and music - but when they had finished floating through the euphoric layer of their sufferings, they opened their eyes in a world of pure sadness and pain.

This sadness is in stark contrast with the carnival atmosphere of the dancing halls, but maybe it explains the wild abandon of these people to the rhythms of the mambo, their sentimentality and their readiness to come together in moments of need. And in explains why their lives are best expressed trough the music they compose, sing at all hours of the day, dance and even make love to. It may also explain the attraction exercised by the African drumbeats, the raw emotions and the joy for life on the more restrained and self-conscious American audience in the 1950's.

... songs written to take the listeners back to the plazas of small towns in Cuba, to Havana, to past moments of courtship and love, passion, and a way of life that was fading from existence. His (and Nestor's) songs were more or less typical of the songwriting of that day: ballads, boleros, and an infinite variety of fast dance numbers (son montunos, guarachas, merengues, guaracha mambos, son pregones). The compositions capturing the moments of youthful cockiness ("A thousand women have I continually satisfied, because I am an amorous man!"). Songs about flirtation, magic, blushing brides, cheating husbands, cuckolds and the cuckolded, flirtatious beauties, humiliation. Happy, sad, fast, and slow.
And there were songs about torment beyond all sorrows.

From a structural perspective, the history of the two brother, first in Cuba and later in New York, is told through the songs they composed and sung together with their band The Mambo Kings . An elderly Cesar reminisces alone and drunk in a cheap hotel room, listening to old 78's self printed records, thinking back to the glory days of white silken suits, Panama hats and endless nights of revelry, spicy food, loud music, voluptuous women and companionship.

What did he have? A few pictures from Cuba, a wall filled with autographed pictures, a headful of memories, sometimes scrambled like eggs.
Again, he remembers back to long ago and his Papi in Cuba saying, "You become a musician, and you'll be a poor man all your life."

The story is non-linear, following Cesar's "scrambled" train of thought, jumping forward and backward in time, yet the individual snapshots are painstakingly and lovingly expanded, added upon and filled with extravagant minute details by Oscar Hijuelos until they become a panoramic and comprehensive big canvas memorial to the times and the people of Little Havana, to the legacy of a Cuban lifestyle that was disappearing fast under the pressure of revolutionary changes and modern values.

This generation has lost its sense of elegance. exclaims Cesar in 1970, looking at the picture of the dapper young men with immaculate suits and pencil-thin moustaches, remembering huge ballrooms with sparkling chandeliers and ladies in evening gowns, sighing over past memories of dainty underwear and high heeled shapely legs. Most of all Cesar is missing his brother and his music, the energy and the resilience that he took for granted in his youth. He's paying the price now for all those fat cigars and glasses of rum, for the sleepless nights and casual amorous encounters.

... he'd lied so often to women over the years, had mistreated and misunderstood so many women, that he had resigned himself to forgetting about love and romance, those very things he used to put in songs.

I was already a 'Cubanophile', as one of the followers of the Mambo Kings is described in the book, long before I read the present novel. It started, as with many of my contemporaries, courtesy of the Buena Vista Social Club and the likes of Ibrahim Ferrer, Compay Segundo and Ruben Gonzales. I was thus already predisposed to enjoy Oscar Hijuelo's history and to look forward to the many tidbits of information and cameo appearances of popular artists from the island and from the American scene. The music already spoke to me of the people and of their passion, of their laughter and of their sadness walking hand in hand. Hijuelos didn't disappoint, but I think I can understand how another reader may view the baroque extravagance of the descriptive passages, the almost academic essays on the origins, inspiration and style of the songs, the pervasive melancholy of the whole presentation as a drag and as self-indulgence on the part of a writer who is unable to get detached enough from his subject. I confess that even for me it was not a smooth ride, and the density of the text often put me to sleep after a day at work. The chronic depression of the two brothers started to get annoying, especially in the second half of the novel, the one that focuses not on the 1950's dance craze, but on the later decadence of a once macho man. The mistreatment of women may be consistent with the period described, but it weights uncomfortably on the modern reader. There are numerous explicit sexual passages, necessary in my opinion to underline the character types, but liable to put stress on the more susceptible readers. Finally, for a book that claims to be apolitical, Hijuelos, through the mouthpiece of Cesar Castillo, unleashes quite vicious attacks on Castro and his revolutionaries, going so far as to mourn for Batista and to reproduce verbatim several of the most egregious pieces of propaganda circulated by the CIA.

There are though enough highlights to make me glad I was patient and read through to the end of the book. The novel weaves together fact and fiction so well that I had no way to tell which are the real musicians of the era and which are the fictional ones. All of them feel alive, ready to stand up and start blowing a trumpet or strumming a guitar, take a turn around the dance floor in the arms of a sultry Latino beauty. The very aboundance of the minute details of day to day life that slow down the pacing are the ones that make the experience authentic and memorable. The cheap sentimentality and readiness for tears are proof that their hearts are not hardened, cynical and closed to the possibility of love:

The night of the dance, Delores was thinking about what her sister Ana Maria had told her: "Love is the sunlight of the soul, water for the flowers of the heart, and the sweet-scented wind of the morning of life" - sentiments taken from corny boleros on the radio, but maybe they were true, no matter how cruel and stupid men can be. Perhaps there'll be a man who'll be different and good to me.

I don't know if the famous bolero sung by Nestor and Cesar Castillo exists or not in one of the old mambo recordings, but it echoes still in my mind, almost two months after I finished the book, and I know that I will listen more carefully to the lyrics next time I put in one of my own Cuban CD's, thinking of my own youthful disregard for the passage of time and my spendthrift atitude to friends and lovers.

Oh, love's sadness,
Why did you come to me?
I was happy before you
entered my heart.

How can I hate you
if I love you so?
I can't explain my torment,
for I don't know how to live
without your love ...
What delicious pain
love has brought to me
in the form of a woman.
My torment and ecstasy,
Maria, my life,
Beautiful Maria of my soul ...


P.S. : I know there is a movie version of the novel, and I plan to find it. I'm glad I got to read the book first, since I don't think you can condense all the rich material here in only a couple of hours of screen time. Yet, I also know of another Cuban movie that is constructed around the music and the 1950's dance scene that did an excellent job with the subject, and I heartily recommend it: Fernando Trueba's animation feature "Chico and Rita"

[Sara · Rating 2 out of 5]

I wanted to love this book. It has a genuine flavor of time gone by, of the days just before and during the Cuban revolution that brought Castro to power and transported so many Cuban citizens to America. It is a trip behind the curtain, into a different culture and the hopes and dreams of a handsome musician, Cesar Castillo, and his brother, Nestor.

I wanted to love this book, but I didn’t. There were parts of it that were marvelous, but there was a kind of shadow that stood between me and Cesar, and I found myself just watching him, instead of knowing him or feeling him. Which is ironic, because feeling him is 50% of what this book is about. For Cesar is a “macho”, a man of virility, a man who lays every woman he meets, wants to lay even his sister-in-law, and I would say, finds very little else to admire about a woman beyond her sexuality.

There is a kind of sadness in the life Cesar lives, and the sex is part of it, because the focus on sex precludes him from ever making a connection that lasts. He is a man of dreams, but in the end, he has a moment of fame that involves a guest shot on I Love Lucy and a tenuous connection with Desi Arnaz. He lives a lifetime off that moment and a song that his brother writes that almost achieves them fame.

He has friends and family, but I could never decide if we were supposed to believe this was enough to make a life worthwhile or see his life as a wasteland. I confess that I settled on the latter, which made the book have no upside for me and left me feeling as if I had viewed a picture painting of disappointment and despair. I could not find one single character in the entire book who lived anything close to a fulfilling or happy life.

I do not feel that I am a prude. The sexual exploits in Cesar’s life are a necessary part of the narrative to understand who he is and what drives him, but I do not need explicit and detailed descriptions of every carnal act, thought, and desire. I always feel something can be left to the imagination and feel a little resentful when an author assumes he might be the only person who knows about sex, so he needs to explain it to the rest of us. More effective, I would think, to tell me how it makes Cesar feel, why he acts as he does, than a three page description of fellatio itself. In fact, my main objection to the book would be the repeated (and I stress this is not once or twice) descriptions of body parts and the fact that this man could not even attend a funeral without thinking about sex with the women in attendance. I realize this almost pornographic element would not bother everyone and would actually be an enhancement for some. Apparently, it appealed to the Pulitzer Committee.

Perhaps I am just worn out with this theme. The History of Tom Jones, a Foundling, which was the last novel I finished before this one, was one sexual romp after another, and the The Saga of Gösta Berling, before Jones, was much the same. I am definitely looking for a book that is about a celibate for my next read, maybe it is time for another Brother Cadfael.

[Anne · Rating 1 out of 5]

I did not realize that I was listening to an abridged audio version of this novel until after 3 hours of listening when it came to an abrupt end. "Abridged" was not written anywhere when I looked it up at my library nor on the copy I borrowed. I'm not even sure I should count it as having "read" it. Also, the narrator was a surprisingly poor choice. He sounded like he was having an asthma attack while reading so I heard every heavy intake of his breathe for 3 hours.

I am giving this novel 2 stars. I cannot write a review because I must have missed most of the story, and from what I've heard from my informed friends, all of the sex scenes. What a waste of time.

[Tori · Rating 1 out of 5]

I guess there was a plot. But I think it was all a thinly veiled cover for writing about an old man's penis.

Seriously. Every page includes some reference to this horny old man's sexual escapades. It's gross. And a little depressing. Which is...provocative. I guess.

EDIT: I redacted my initial hatred-filled review. I might even consider re-reading this, from a non-sophomoric* perspective.

*I was a sophomore in high school when I first read this and hated it...

[William2 · Rating 3 out of 5]

Like clockwork, highly viscous, graphic coitus every 3-5 pages. Give that book The Pulitzer Prize!

[Terry · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is nostalgic, exotic, erotic and narcotic. It is a beautiful book and I have returned to it several times and each time I am completely swept up emotionally by it. With mere words on a page, the author creates the melodies of the Mambo era, the smells of rural Cuban cane fields, the sweat of a dance hall, the swelter of a New York City summer. The two main characters, Cesar and Nestor love in completely different, but totally compelling, ways. For Nestor, love is an ideal, out of reach and cause for nothing but pain. Cesar loves all of womankind with an unquenchable thirst. If Nestor is a Keats poem, Cesar is a Marvin Gaye album. I did not find the book sexist (as some have claimed), I did find the book unabashedly sensual, as sensual as the music and culture and era in which it celebrates. If your greatest erogenous zone is your mind, read The Mambo Kings Play Songs of Love. If living a life that is drenched in passion and pleasure to it`s fullest capacity is a belief you subscribe to, read this book. If you enjoy rich storytelling, you will like this book.

[Vonia · Rating 2 out of 5]

The Mambo Kings Play Songs of Love (1989)
Author: Oscar Hijuelos
Read: 1/6/20
Rating: 2/5 stars

**** Spoilers ****

Ostensibly, a story of two Cuban-American musician brothers, their experiences as immigrants and progress from strangers in the country to relatively well-known mambo artists, especially after their cameo on "I Love Lucy" as Ricky Ricardo's cousins.
Nonlinear storytelling. The text is bookended by first person natives from Nestor Castillo's soon, Eugenio- the protagonist Cesar Castillo's nephew. Remainder of text is almost entirely told from an omniscient third person perspective, with a few arbitrary first person passages. The frame of the narrative is Cesar in a room in a The Hotel Splendour in 1980, supposably having gone there to spend his last days. Bottles of whiskey on hand and a glass that doesn't leave his desperate clutch, The Mambo King- as he prefers to be called- has chosen his most successful record (the eponymous "The Mambo Kings Play Songs of Love") as the soundtrack to this solitary event. As the needle automatically moves from song to song, he reflects on his 64 years of life. Loosely plotted, a fictional biography of sorts.

The novel is modeled after a record, with a "Side A" + "Side B". Like the content of these sides for records, "Side A" of this book is, by far, superior. So, we begin in an unknown room in the Hotel Splendour in 1980. Rewind to the 1930s, Cuba. Moving lyrically through time, it tells of the rise to fame for the two Castillos- more peacockish and reckless Cesar and younger, more melancholy Nestor. Together then immigrate to New York in 1949, leaving behind their parents, two other brothers; a wife and daughter for Cesar and a lost love for Nestor. Cesar quickly gets over his wife, sufficiently distracted by his womanizing and blatant disregard for his marriage vows. Nestor- despite finding and marrying a young Cuban woman, Delores, that he does love in his own way, and having a son, Eugenio, and a daughter, Leticia- spends the remainder of his young life hurting, pining after this woman in Cuba. This woman named Maria, the namesake for the band's most valuable canción (song). This woman, distressingly, is now married to another man, yet Nestor cannot detach his heart as he continues to write love letters to she who never answers, as his loyal wife awaits him at home. (A sequel from Maria's point of view, “Beautiful Maria of My Soul" was published in 2010.) In 1955, they meet and spend an evening with Desi Arnaz and his then wife Lucille Ball. Three months later, they are flown first class out to Hollywood to star in an episode of their show "I Love Lucy", where they perform "Beautiful Maria of My Soul" on air. Already popular, the bolero becomes their most famous single, recorded on a 45 rpm in addition to being included on the band's most popular 33 rpm album "The Mambo Kings Play Songs of Love", recorded 1956. "A song about love so far away it hurts; a song about losing pleasures, a song about youth, a song about love so elusive a man can never know where he stands; a song about wanting a woman so much death does not frighten you, a song about wanting that woman even when she has abandoned you." Alas, Tragedy strikes a few years later. On a wintery night, the roads slick with ice, the brothers and Cesar's newest babe are on the way home from a performance in New Jersey. Cesar, having demanded Nestor drive them back so that he can make out with Vanna, is ostentatiously kissing and feeling her up when Nestor tries to turn up the heat for his riders. But instead of a change in temperature, a miscalculation. And the car swerves fatally into a tree.

Here begins "Side B". It seems, without Nestor, we are left with nothing but the discomforted and discomforting Cesar. A loving brother, yes- but his friends and family aside, he is at best a libertine and at worst a reprehensible, unforgivable degenerate. After Nestor's death, Cesar is at a loss and becomes a mess. His already reckless habits only become worse. His womanizing increases to an utterly appalling situation. He becomes a full blown alcoholic. He adopts a stance of complete apathy in regards to his health, ignoring repeated admonishments from his doctors explaining in no uncertain terms that drinking anything more will kill him. After a few months living with his sister-in-law (who remarries after a grieving period), he eventually becomes a superintendent and gets his own apartment free of charge. He visits Cuba a couple times, his parents and his two other brothers, there is talk of Fidel Castro, dull passages on communism and politics. And, again, endless tellings of his countless sexual escapades. He becomes more and more desperate and increasingly pathetic in both thoughts and actions as he realizes he cannot have young women the way he used to.

Certainly, Hijuelos writes beautiful descriptions and his prose often takes on a lyrical tone. Much of the story is well told, even compelling. There is much to learn about the Cuban experience; about the music industry; about coping and the human condition. Alas, everything good about this novel is outweighed by four main things: the confounding format and writing style, the editing problems- i.e. typos, the preoccupation with the brothers' appearance on the one episode of the "I Love Lucy" show, and- by far the most glaring offense- the sexism and vulgarity.

The writing is close to stream of consciousnes. Imagine an omniscient narrator that likes to hover around Cesar's point of view but ventures out to other characters often. But it's quite a capricious storyteller, randomly floating in and out of scenes, with little to no heed to time or place or transitions; giving little in the way of explanation, vexing the reader at the moment- and though often times this narrator circles back in time and place eventually to give the backstory, at that point a reader has long forgotten the circumstances of that particular anecdote. Reminiscence? Present day? Cuba? New York? Dream? Nightmare? Reality? Mix them all together, give it a good shake. Like a rocky road trip, being constantly yanked back to the present, to 1980 in the Hotel Splendour, is disorienting and unnerving.

There are many typos. From grammatical to spelling. Page numbers and details can be given upon request. Needles to stay, they were distracting.

Yes, it was great, even life changing, that they met Desi Arnaz and got to be on his show. Readers understand this when it is mentioned in the first few pages. This is further emphasized when it is mentioned the second time. And the third. And the fourth. Long before it serves as the backdrop to the epilogue, we, as readers, get it.

This is not prudishness. When every third anecdote (at least) involves the protagonist's "pinga"- Cuban for penis- as its star, one might understandably take issue. Sexual intercourse, various positions, oral, all described in naked detail. Cesar's semen is practically personified in impressively detailed descriptions. In his younger years, he has no shame flaunting his infidelities- as a homewrecker for both his own family and as "the other man" in many other women's- seducing girls whenever and wherever, ditching one for another, hardly being able to keep them apart. In his older years, he has no shame pining after women old enough to be his daughter, becoming dispirited when he is unsuccessful and passively suicidal when he realizes he will likely never have a young woman again. He measures his self-worth and life quality by the women he beds.

Conclusion? This review began by describing what this Pultizer Prize winning novel is ostensibly about. It ends by stating what should now be clear- that "The Mambo Kings Play Songs of Love" very well could have been worthy of such accolades. Instead, all the lyrical prose, praiseworthy character studies, didactic insight into the Cuban immigrant experience, behind-the-scenes secrets of the Mambo music business? Cheapened by the glaringly offensive details of the sexual exploits of a dying bigot.

[Julia · Rating 2 out of 5]

The main character in this book is an old guy drinking in a hotel room, and (to its credit, I guess) the book is a lot like being in a hotel room with an old guy: stories from his bygone youth, a few central events repeated again and again in different lights. I kept wanting to get up and say "Welp, look at the time! Gotta go, OK bye", and then a new yarn would begin, and next thing I knew another couple hours/hundred pages would be gone, and then eventually the guy dies and the book's over and I could finally leave. If you are the kind of reader who really likes to know how the protagonist's dick is doing, this book will be great for you, because there's a dick status update on just about every page. Me, I did a lot of eye rolling.

Names of Cuban musicians and mambos from the 50s are dropped liberally throughout, and I looked up lots of songs from Perez Prado and others - that was the best part of the book for me. It should come with a soundtrack!

[Albert · Rating 3 out of 5]

Oh my! Where to even start on this one? Two brothers, Cesar and Nestor grow up in Cuba in the early 20th century. They have a loving mother but a father that physically abuses them. Instead of farming with their father they look to music as a path to a different life. Cesar learns to play the piano, guitar and other instruments, but singing is his real talent. Cesar pulls his brother Nestor into the musician’s life with him; Nestor becomes a talented trumpet player. They play traditional Cuban music for that period: mambo, rumba, etc. The brothers escape to NYC in the late 1940’s. They are escaping from their father but also from the intense competition for musician jobs in Cuba. Cesar is handsome, charismatic and macho; there is something very different about Nestor: he is consistently melancholic, sad.

The other significant character in this story is the Cuban culture, as found in Cuba and among the immigrants from Cuba in NYC. It is also about musicians trying to make a living in NYC in the 50’s. You find yourself immersed in this world. It is a macho man’s world, and the story is told from a man’s perspective. A constant in this world is SEX. Sex and more sex. Sexual acts, sex talk, sexual body parts. You have to see past the sex to get to the characters and the story. And yet, the story and the world it describes would not be the same without the sex.

At times the story drags. The beginning was especially slow and there are parts of the story that feel repetitive, but it is a unique world that the author creates with many layers: sounds, tastes and aromas. There is passion: for women, for music and for food. This is not a book I can take responsibility for recommending to anyone. You should approach it knowing what you are getting into.

[Joy D · Rating 3 out of 5]

In 1949, brothers Cesar and Nestor Castillo leave Havana, Cuba and make their home in New York. They are musicians who experience a brief brush with fame with a song written by Nestor to an idealized love interest. They catch the attention of fellow Cuban Desi Arnaz and make a cameo appearance on the I Love Lucy show. It covers the brothers’ childhood in Cuba and Cesar’s life into his sixties.

The first half of the book tells a story of contrasting personalities – Cesar is the flamboyant lead singer who enjoys the limelight and Nestor is more comfortable in a supporting role. Cesar chases women relentlessly while Nestor is fixated on one early relationship to the detriment of his wife and children. The second half focuses on Cesar, sitting in a run-down hotel room in 1980, drinking whiskey, listening to his group’s old recordings, and reflecting back on his life. The introduction and conclusion are written from the viewpoint of Nestor’s son, Eugenio, providing the next generation’s perspective.

I have mixed feelings about this book. On the positive side, the writing is expressive and convincingly evokes the period of the 1940s and 1950s. The musical references provide a wealth of material to investigate further, which I always appreciate. On the negative side, the plot is almost exclusively focused on drinking and sex. The main character is drinking himself to death, and the many sex scenes are extremely graphic. There is little character development. It does not leave much room for anything beyond commenting on a shallow life. It was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction in 1990.

[Dan · Rating 4 out of 5]

This Pulitzer winning story of Cesar, the Mambo King, and his Cuban/Cuban American family was compelling although the narrative timeline was unnecessarily haphazard. The story bounces around a lot. Valid criticism has been made of the constant focus on Cesar’s penis and sexual conquests. ‘Come on now let’s move along’ is what I kept thinking. The superficial treatment of women is also a common theme. These are the three reasons that I can’t rate the book as a masterpiece or at least five stars. The third point is hardly unique to this book or many Pulitzer prize winning novels.

I won’t provide a plot summary here but the fictional panorama that is drawn around Cesar’s life and the thematic ties to Cuba and immigration was convincing. The feeling of this time long since past lends a magical quality to the story, such that I wished I had seen that period up close. The writing was engaging and top notch especially in the broader saga context. I definitely was drawn in enough to care about the characters, both the brothers and the nephew. I think the Desi Arnaz connection to the brothers felt a little contrived or at least unnecessary. I would have liked the book just as much without this tie-in.

Four stars.

[Kuszma · Rating 4 out of 5]

Ha a filmes borítók megdobják a könyveladást, nézzük, hogy reagál ilyesmire az értékelés műfaja:



Bevándorlóregény, egyben óda a latin életérzéshez. César és Nestor, a két testvér szűknek érzi Kuba szigetét, és az államokba teszi át székhelyét. Mindketten pazar muzsikusok, vérükben van a mambo, és fel is vannak... khm... szerszámozva rendesen. Már értitek, mire gondolok. Ugye. Na. (A könyvből ítélve amúgy ez a két dolog afféle kubai nemzeti sajátosság. A ritmusérzék meg a vaskos pénisz. Utóbbit amúgy majd annyiszor szóba hozza a szerző, mint a fivérek hangszeres tudását, következésképpen ez egy felettébb... ehm... vérbő regény.) César és Nestor jobban már nem is különbözhetnének egymástól: előbbi merőkanállal habzsolja az életet, ital, nők, bulika, égeti a gyertyát az összes lehetséges végén, utóbbi viszont introvertált alkat (a depresszió kórisméjét is megkockáztatnám), aki képtelen szabadulni otthon hagyott ex-szerelme emlékétől. Ők ketten aztán betörnek a New York-i mambopiacra, sőt: öles léptekkel haladnak a világhír felé is. A siker persze hálátlan kutya, pláne ha kegyetlen regényíró felelős a forgatókönyv ívéért, így hát a csúcs után ott ásít a szakadék, amit a tesók sem kerülhetnek el.

Kaotikus, pulzáló nyelven megírt krónika, aminek egyik erénye New York latin-amerikai közösségének színpompás ábrázolása. Egyértelműen kettéosztja egy cezúra: az első blokk a siker, a második a lejtmenet krónikája. Megmondom őszintén: az első részt néha túl soknak, túl harsánynak éreztem, még akkor is teher volt, ha kompatibilis a szereplők világhoz való viszonyulásával. Ugyanakkor a második rész annyira szépen írja le, ahogy a maximálisan igénybe vett test szépen, fokozatosan benyújtja a számlát a folyamatos extrém megterhelésért, hogy az elbűvölt. Hijuelos érti, hogy a macsónak a lehető legnagyobb tragédia a férfierő elszivárgása, és ezt nem is kezeli félvállról. Csillogó-villogó, lendületes regény ez, de igazán emlékezetessé az empátia teszi.

[Karina · Rating 4 out of 5]

He laughed: he would have given anything to have the physical virtuosity now that he did when he was thirty-six and first brought Miss Mambo up those stairs and into the room. He used to live for that moment when he could strip a woman down on a bed: Miss Vanna Mane of Brooklyn, New York, had a mole just below her nipple of her right breast, and, boom, his big thing used to stick out just like that, just by touching a woman's breast or standing close to her and sensing the heat between her legs. (PGS 9-10)

Pulitzer Prize Winner-- 1989

I am rating this based on the writing. It is written so well and the storyline is also a bit of a genius. I am an Oscar Hijuelos fan. The only reason why it isn't a five star is the exotica parts he writes in. He is a very detailed sexual being or he is very deprived of sex and imagines it to be so glamorous and writes like a porn star turned writer. But I am all for cheering a Latin writer to get recognition, not because he is Latin, but because he can actually write.

The story is about two brothers. The setting starts in Cuba pre-Fidel era and then we travel to New York City where the rest of the story takes place. Cesar Castillo, the Mambo King and a penis like King Kong's, is a sexual deviant that is basically a jerk and womanizer. He has hints of goodness in him so the reader can dislike or like him at any given moment throughout the novel. Nestor Castillo, the younger brother, is a Debby Downer. He is sad all the time and wonders when the next terrible thing will happen to him or his family. I think he would need anti-depressants in this current time. He meets a woman, and although she breaks his heart and leaves him, we see him unhappier than ever. He fantasizes and lusts after her, even after acquiring a wife and two children. What's worse than a depressed man that still wants his ex? Maybe I dislike him more than Cesar because at least Cesar doesn't pretend he is good.

So we watch them immigrate to the United States and form an orchestra to try and be famous, like Tito Puente and Tito Rodriguez. Desi Arnaz and Lucille Ball make many appearances throughout the novel. It is a lovely story we see unfolding. I grew to know and admire the characters and Hijuelos' writing.

Overall, fantastic novel. Would definitely recommend.

(Side Note:: Buddy Read w/@Licha)

[Book Concierge · Rating 5 out of 5]

Cesar Castillo, the Mambo King himself, is an old man, and is remembering his life (and loves) in Cuba and New York as he approaches death. In the middle of the book is a quote that perfectly describes Cesar’s life: “Me siento contento cuando sufro,” he sang one day, “I feel happy when I’m suffering.”

Cesar and his younger brother Nestor arrive in New York full of ambition and desire to be musicians. They are talented and willing to work hard, and with some luck, put together an orchestra (The Mambo Kings), riding the popularity of the mambo craze of the late 1940s. They even get a guest appearance on “I Love Lucy” after Desi Arnaz catches their nightclub act one evening. The appearance gives them a measure of celebrity and helps them to sell several records. But true fame is just beyond their reach.

Nestor is an incredibly talented trumpet player and songwriter, but he suffers from unrequited love for the woman who left him when he still lived in Cuba. He marries Delores and starts a family, but still pines for the “Beautiful Maria of My Soul” of whom he sings. His deep melancholy ends only when the car he is driving skids off the road in a snowstorm, killing him.

Cesar has always been the driving force for the Mambo Kings – a handsome, suave, baritone who charms the audience and spreads his favors among the many women he “loves.” He is generous to a fault, freely bestowing gifts and money on those he befriends, as well as supporting his family members still in Cuba. But after Nestor dies, he simply cannot continue to be the leader he once was. He descends into a depression that begins slowly to eat at him, fueled by drinking and excess.

It is a melancholy story, but lyrically told and impassioned. Cesar’s reflections on his life give us a moving portrait of the man, his community and the times. Hijuelos writing is evocative and moving; the book leaves my heart aching for Cesar and Nestor.

[Irene · Rating 2 out of 5]

Through the life of one man, a Cuban immigrant to New York in the 1950s who knew momentary success as part of a Latin band, this book recreates an era. If this is an accurate depiction of a time and place, it was an awful way to live, vapid lives spent in a drug and alcohol haze, obsession with recreational sex devoid of any real commitment, the complete objectification of women as sex objects or servants. The book was far too long, far too repetitive. Had 90% of the mention of pubic hair, nipples and penises been cut from the text, it would have hardly qualified as a novella. I don’t care if this won a Pulitzer; I found it unnecessarily vulgar and insulting to women. 1.5 stars

[Marvin · Rating 2 out of 5]

I tried to like this book. Partly because I find the Latin music sub-culture of the 50s a fascinating topic and partly because I do think Hijuelos has a fine style of writing. However it is simply too repetitive and uninvolving. I guess I'm supposed to like Cesar and Nestor but I never really find out much about them except they are talented musicians (yeah, I got that part in the first ten pages) and that they are good in bed. I just expected more when someone takes the time to write a full novel. It had its moments which is why I gave it two stars instead of one stars. But, honestly, I just didn't like it.

[April · Rating 1 out of 5]

At least two or three times he mentions the man's 'thick tongue' in describing a kiss. Weird.

If you like to read horrible books that won big prizes (Pulitzer), read this one.

[Ansell · Rating 2 out of 5]

Really Pulitzer committee? Really?

[Whiskey Tango · Rating 4 out of 5]

Love is so strong it can ultimately destroy. An aging musician reflects back on his glory days and invites the reader to experience life with sound and flavor and color.

Two Cuban brothers and musicians play Latin neighborhoods of New York City in the early 1950s and, with the help of Santaria, get their break when they appear on the "I Love Lucy Show." (Desi Arnaz is a character in the book.) The novel seems improvisational, like the music itself, as characters dance the cha-cha in meat lockers and in clubs while trumpets blare. They work long hours at their day jobs and drink to ward off exhaustion as they jam until 3:00 a.m. Fingers freeze on meat carcasses and burn on trumpet keys. They like their music voluptuous, "not emaciated," like their women. The story is like Cuban cuisine--lechón, asado; arroz moro; yucca;--seasoned with salt, splashed with lemon and infused with rum.

Hijuelos, with his typical generosity of spirit, portrays a man, his family and his community in 1950's New York. Cesar is exuberant; Nestor is melancholic and nostalgic. Cesar embraces America; Nestor misses Cuba. Cesar risks all; Nestor avoids risk. Cesar dwells on the future; Nestor dwells on the past. In ways, the lives of the brothers parallel and reflect the destiny of the USA and Cuba during the last half of the 20C.

[David Lentz · Rating 5 out of 5]

Oscar Hijuelos is a truly gifted writer who makes a uniquely American experience and era of music come alive with a passionate honesty for which he is worthy of great credit. One deeply feels the alienation of the brothers in New York where they search for their Cuban heritage and can never get beyond their longing for their lost country. There is an emptiness, a painful longing that can never be filled except by alcohol, music and love. They are trapped within the machismo prevalent in their heyday and seem to find a hollow solace there -- never quite connecting with a fulfilling or enduring love. The many relationships are exciting but temporary and those that are deep do not last. Yet in them the elder Castillo finds that life is lived intensely, even if the intensity is fleeting. His descriptions of his love for his mother are moving and his sacrifices to learn and pursue his art command respect.They are sacrifices that every devoted artist recognizes. Hijuelos definitely understands the music crafted, like much great art, out of agony of the spirit. The reader is transported to another era with a realism that rings true. Their suffering is the origin of their consciousness and the essence of their best music.The music is omniscient from the clanking on the pipes in claves to the boleros that define their experience. The encounters with Desi Arnaz were a nice creative touch, a rounding out of their experience, and a foil for their own poverty amid the American Dream. Hijuelos seems to have brought some of his own cultural experience in New York into play with great conviction and depth. The writing style is truly innovative and the honesty in the writing is genuinely compelling.

[Pep Bonet · Rating 2 out of 5]

I'm sorry, Óscar, hombre, but I had many pains with you. I had been longing to read your book for a long while. I had you in my list of American Hispano authors to read. I had already seen some reviews which were not too positive, but still. And I must say they were right. The book is longish, repetitive. A couple of ideas extended to become a long book. I feel I read the same sentences several times. Anyway, with the story coming back again all the time and all the descriptions of the fabulous artillery of the Mambo King and his sexual power only added to it. After so many f...s, you just lose count on who you are talking about. There were few pages when I really felt inside the book and I did all my best to read several books at the same time to escape from the boredom of just reading this one. Bad luck.

[Luis · Rating 2 out of 5]

Being Cuban-American myself, I was eager to read this book. I struggled with it. I think it was because Mr. Hijuelos writing style is not for me. Maybe fictional memoirs are not for me. There were a few interesting parts, but for the most part it was very slow and dragged on. How many pages does it take for me to understand that Nestor was lovesick over Maria? Also, I would have to say that not all Cubans have sex on their minds 24/7. I think that Cubans are very passionate people and like to romance. This book did show some of that romance, but most of it was geared to the physical aspect of love instead of the emotional side. I'm just saying! It won a Pulitzer prize for a reason. I just don't get why.

[Grace · Rating 2 out of 5]

PULITZER PRIZE WINNER: 1990
===
2.5 rounded down

I didn't dislike this one quite as much as I anticipated, but I can't exactly say I enjoyed. Far too long by half--the entire B-side on could have been cut IMO. The portrayal of women and the characters' obsession with sex just came off grimy, like the author has a lot of frustrated fantasies he was desperate to write out. Which was bad enough, but the writing of them was so awkward--I lost count of how many times the brothers referred to their "big thing" and once a man's "penis [is] weeping semen tears" I'm fucking out, man. *shudders* Oh, and then there was the scene when Cesar fondly remembers the time he raped a woman with absolutely nothing in the text to indicate that was all that bad. The time period covered here, the ~golden age~ of mambo in NYC from a Cuban immigrant's POV was definitely interesting, and there were some good aspects, but they were buried beneath hundreds of pages of misogyny and gratuitous (and grossly written) exploitative smut/obsession with women, that it was just off-putting.

[Aimee Jackson · Rating 2 out of 5]

I really wanted to like this book, but I just could never summon sympathy or interest in the main character, Cesar. This is a rich and sorrowful book, filled with longing, regret, heartache, and loss. The depiction of Latino life and culture could have been exceptional, but was ruined by the never-ending stream of machismo and male sexuality. And the repetitive telling of the 'I Love Lucy' scene made it seem that I was reading the same story over and over. I get that it was a significant event in their lives and careers, but it was just too monotonous. I had to force myself to finish the book, and was glad when it was over.