Audiobooks by Oscar Hijuelos

The Empress of the Splendid Season: A Novel

"Pulitzer Prize-winning author Oscar Hijuelos brings the joys and heartbreaks of twentieth-century America vividly to life in this "tender" novel (New York Times Book Review). Lydia España-once a wealthy, spoiled daughter of Cuba-works at a sewing factory in New York. Adjusting to her sharp change of circumstances, missing the days when her prosperous father provided her with every luxury, she ruminates on the incident that drove her away from her homeland in the late 1940s-until she falls in love with Raul, a kindhearted, working-class waiter who sees Lydia as the "Queen of the Congo Line" she used to be: the empress of "the most beautiful and splendid season, which is love." Despite their age difference, a loving marriage follows, as well as two children. Lydia revels in her newfound happiness, but when Raul's health declines, she finds her fortunes reversed yet again. Now working as a cleaning lady, Lydia can't help but contrast her experiences with those of her clients, whose secret lives and day-to-day realities are so starkly different from her own-but over time, the role may prove to be just what she needs to secure a better life for her children. Written with absorbing, magnetic prose, this tenderly rendered novel follows a proud, hardworking woman through the ups and downs of her life. It is Hijuelos at his masterful best, a lasting and expert portrayal of the highs and lows of chasing-and living-the "American Dream." Includes a Reading Group Guide."

Oscar Hijuelos (Author), Aida Reluzco (Narrator)

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A Simple Habana Melody: A Novel

"From a Pulitzer Prize-winning author comes a "masterpiece" about a composer returning to his beloved homeland after WWII (Kirkus, starred review). The year is 1947. Israel Levis, a Cuban composer whose life once revolved around music and love, is finally returning home. En route to Habana, Cuba from Spain, he is a shadow of his former self, disillusioned after he was mistakenly sent to a camp during the Nazi occupation of France. In Habana, he escapes his anguish by reminiscing about his happiest moments before the war, when he lived a life of pleasure and excitement-and had a loving, if unrequited romance with Rita Valladares, the alluring singer who inspired Levis's most famous composition, "Rosas Puras." A tender homage to music, art, and a vibrant country at the edge of modernity, A Simple Habana Melody is a virtuoso performance from one of America's most talented writers. Includes a reading group guide. "

Oscar Hijuelos (Author), Fabio Tassone (Narrator)

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Mr. Ives' Christmas: A Novel

"Hailed "the deepest and the best" of a Pulitzer-Prize winning author's novels, a business man struggles to restore his faith after his son is killed (New York Times Book Review). In 1960s New York, Edward Ives is a picture of the American dream. Adopted as a child by a widowed print shop manager who helped him cultivate a love of drawing, he now has a successful career as an illustrator in advertising, a beautiful home with his wife and muse, Annie, and two loving children. But this idyllic life is brutally wrenched away when Ives's 17-year-old son, Robert is murdered in a crime of opportunity that proves to be as random as it is senseless. Consumed by grief, Ives withdraws from the world. Grappling with a loss of faith-a force that has guided him steadfastly since childhood-he starts to question every aspect of human existence, contemplating what it really means to live an emotionally and spiritually fulfilling life. This mourning consumes him-until faces his son's killer. Mr. Ives' Christmas is a tender, passionate story of a man working to rediscover what it means to love and forgive after unspeakable tragedy. It is another tremendous achievement from one of America's most talented writers. Includes a Reading Group Guide."

Oscar Hijuelos (Author), Robert Fass (Narrator)

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The Fourteen Sisters of Emilio Montez O'Brien: A Novel

"With "soaring, matchless prose," a Pulitzer Prize winner pens a New York Times bestselling saga of the Montez O'Briens, a rambunctious family of Irish Cuban immigrants comprised of fourteen daughters-and one doggedly masculine son (Publishers Weekly). Irish American Nelson O'Brien fell passionately in love with the poetess Mariela Montez while photographing the ravages of battle in Mariela's native Cuba during the Spanish-American War. After marrying, they moved to the United States to start a new life, settling in a small Pennsylvania town where Nelson took over the Jewel Box Movie Theater. Together, they had a remarkable fifteen children: fourteen daughters and one lone son. In Oscar Hijuelos's The Fourteen Sisters of Emilio Montez O'Brien, the lives, loves, and tragedies of this sprawling Irish Cuban family unfold. Over the course of a century, each member moves in and out of each other's lives, traversing Cuba, New York, California, Alaska, and Ireland, while Margarita-the Montez O'Brien's eldest daughter-ruminates on the nature of femininity, sex, love, and earthly happiness. And as Margarita learns and grows in an overwhelmingly female environment, she can't help but contrast her experiences with those of Emilio, her intensely masculine brother, whose B-movie career in the 1950s has left him adrift and frustrated, with little hope of success. Lush and gorgeously written, The Fourteen Sisters of Emilio Montez O'Brien is a masterwork by one of America's greatest writers. Reckoning with cultural assimilation and complex family dynamics, the novel elicits tears and laughter while tenderly revealing the bounteous heart and exhilarating adventures of a warm, passionate family. Includes a Reading Group Guide."

Oscar Hijuelos (Author), Gary Tiedemann (Narrator)

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Our House in the Last World: A Novel

"A first-generation Cuban son comes of age in the debut--and most autobiographical--novel by the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of The Mambo Kings Play Songs of Love. Winner of the Ingram Merrill Foundation Award and the Rome Prize Hector Santinio is the younger son of Alejo and Mercedes, who moved to New York from Cuba in the mid-1940s. The family of four shares their modest apartment with extended relatives in Harlem, where homesickness and nostalgia are dispelled by nights of dancing and raucous parties. But life's realities are nevertheless harsh in the Santinio family's adoptive land. When Mercedes takes Hector and his brother to visit Cuba, to better know her culture, Hector contracts a serious illness that leads to a terrifying period of hospitalization back in the United States where, isolated from his family, he loses much of his ability to speak Spanish. And it is this fracturing that sparks a lifelong quest to not only reconcile his Cuban identity with his American one, but to also understand his parents' ambitions and anxieties within the country at large. In this profoundly moving account of immigrant life, Oscar Hijuelos displays, once again, his mastery over both character and language-and sets readers on an unforgettable journey of hope, longing, and self-discovery. Includes a Reading Group Guide."

Oscar Hijuelos (Author), Gustavo Rex, Jason Canela, Junot Díaz (Narrator)

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Mambo Kings Play Songs of Love: A Novel

"The Pulitzer Prize winning modern classic of two Cuban musician brothers during the mambo-filled nights of 50's New York from literary trailblazer, Oscar Hijuelos. It's 1949 and two young Cuban musicians make their way from Havana to the grand stage of New York City. It is the era of mambo, and the Castillo brothers, workers by day, become stars of the dance halls by night, where their orchestra plays the lush, sensuous, pulsing music that earns them the title of the Mambo Kings. This is their moment of youth, exuberance, love, and freedom―a golden time that decades later is remembered with nostalgia and deep affection. Hijuelos's portrait of the Castillo brothers, their families, their fellow musicians and lovers, their triumphs and tragedies, recreates the sights and sounds of an era in music and an unsung moment in American life. Exuberantly celebrated from the moment it was published in 1989, The Mambo Kings Play Songs of Love won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction in 1990 (making Hijuelos the first Hispanic recipient of the award). It remains a perennial bestseller, and the story's themes of cultural fusion and identity are as relevant today as they were over 30 years ago, proving Hijuelos's novel to be a genuine and timeless classic. Includes a Reading Group Guide."

Oscar Hijuelos (Author), Betsy Foldes Meiman, Gustavo Rex, Jason Canela (Narrator)

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Twain & Stanley Enter Paradise

"From a Pulitzer Prize-winning author, a novel inspired by the friendship between famed writer and humorist Mark Twain and legendary explorer Sir Henry Morton Stanley-"surely among the best books Oscar ever wrote" (Paul Auster). Acclaimed novelist Oscar Hijuelos was fascinated by the Twain-Stanley connection and eventually began researching and writing a novel that used the scant historical record of their relationship as a starting point for a more detailed fictional account. It was a labor of love for Hijuelos; indeed, he was still revising the manuscript the day before his sudden passing in 2013. The resulting novel is a richly woven tapestry of people and events that is unique among the author's works. Ingeniously blending correspondence, memoir, and third-person omniscience to explore the intersection of these Victorian giants in a long-vanished world, the novel superbly channels two vibrant but very different figures, from their early days as journalists in the American West, to their admiration and support of each other's writing, mutual hatred of slavery, social life together in the dazzling literary circles of the time, and even a mysterious journey to Cuba to search for Stanley's adoptive father. A compelling and deeply felt historical fantasia that utilizes the full range of Hijuelos's gifts, as well as an unforgettable coda to a brilliant writing career. Includes a reading group guide."

Oscar Hijuelos (Author), James Langton (Narrator)

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Dark Dude

"From Pulitzer Prize-winning novelist Oscar Hijuelos comes an unforgettable journey about identity, choices, and the way in which we all struggle to accept our true selves. In gritty, clear prose, Dark Dude captures New York City in the 1960s-violent, decaying, slouching away from the American dream-and brings to life a character who has no choice but to head out west in search of something better. Rico didn't say good-bye. He didn't leave a phone number. And he didn't plan on coming back-ever. In the Midwest, Rico could blend in, his light hair and lighter skin disguising his background. He would no longer be the "dark dude," the punching bag for the whole neighborhood. Trading Harlem for Wisconsin, though, means giving up on a big part of his identity. And when Rico no longer has to prove that he's Latino, he almost stops being one. Except that he can never have an ordinary white kid's life, because there are some things that can't be left behind, things that will follow you a thousand miles away. When Rico discovers that picket-fenced apple-pie people can be just as violent and judgmental as the neighbors he left behind, he is forced to swallow an uncomfortable truth: no longer an outsider by his appearance, Rico is still an outsider."

Oscar Hijuelos (Author), Armando Durán (Narrator)

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