Empress of the Splendid Season - Softcover

The collision of Cuban dreams with sometimes harsh American realities has been Oscar Hijuelos's great theme, most notably in Mambo Kings Play Songs of Love. Certainly it's at the heart of his fifth novel, Empress of the Splendid Season, which chronicles the trials, tribulations and infrequent triumphs of a Cuban-American clan over the course of half a century. The protagonist, Lydia Espana, has grown up in pre-Castro Cuba, the pampered daughter of a prosperous businessman. But when she has the audacity to violate her father's small-town code of conduct--by sleeping with an itinerant musician--she pays a terrible penalty: "Her family, turning unfairly against her with a nearly Biblical wrath, had banished her, unprepared to contend with an indifferent world."

Where is Lydia banished to? New York, of course. And in this most indifferent of cities, the former "queen of the Congo line" finds herself in a less exalted role: that of a cleaning woman. This demotion she accepts with a very credible mixture of resignation and rock-ribbed realism: "The hardest part of being a cleaning woman had to do with the way people looked at her; often as if she were "nothing." It hurt her most when men did not notice her. The nature of the work itself, the outfit, the end-of-the-day fatigue, the messiness of that labour were not glamorous, so what could she expect." Lydia is less sanguine about her family's difficulties, from her husband Raul's near-fatal heart attack to her son's brushes with the law. Empress of the Splendid Season is in fact an ensemble piece that passes the point of view from character to character, from generation to generation. But it's Lydia's sensibility--at once stoic and sensuous--that ultimately enlivens this latest take on the American (or perhaps Cuban-American) Dream. --William Davies

"A slow dance, an elegy to a cleaning woman, that continues the author's celebraton of his Cuban roots. A character endowed with romantic yearnings, Lydia moves with stoic grace through the decades...Emotional fine tuning and pitch-perfect prose." -- "Time""Finely detailed, funny, sweet...a deliberately simple story graced with the power of the ordinary."-- "National Public Radio""Simply Splendid...In "Empress of the Splendid Season, " Hijuelos lovingly suggests, true beauty lies in the small moments of a 'decent, genteel, low-key'life..."-- "People""Nobody writes better about sensual life than Hijuelos, and Empress resounds with sights, tastes, humming ambience...His best novel since his Pulitzer-winning "The Mambo Kings Play Songs of Love.""-- "Los Angeles Times""Exuberantly written...Hijuelos is an old-fashioned novelist...In "Empress of the Splendid Season" he has written a story with a lesson--he is telling us how to live."-- "Miami Herald""It's refreshing, in these times of great American prosperity to read a novel about people who are just plain poor. Hijuelos is telling a story about small people, but in his skillful hands, they carry big ideas."-- "USA Today""A richly narrated novel...explores with passion. . .the strange workings of life, love [and] family."-- "Elle""It is hard not to love Lydia Espana."-- "Boston Globe""Oscar Hijuelos's powerful, subtle 'Empress' probes the mysteries of the soul. Hijuelos is a story teller...Along the way he beguiles you with anecdotes, vignettes, memories, dreams, reflections and revelations, in prose that is at times lyrical, at times colloquial, and always lucid."-- "San Diego Union-Tribune""A very human, eminently readable, and very funnybook."-- "National Review""Oscar Hijuelos's fifth novel is in many ways his most personal. . . . In the same lush yet disciplined prose that characterizes his best writing, Hijuelos evokes a personal landscape that proves even moe revealing and more affecting. . . . "-- R"ichmond Times Dispatch""This novel is beautifully evocative of a splendid empress, her culture, her time and her past."-- "Cleveland Plain Dealer""Empress tells the tale of Lydia Espana through short scenes spanning several decades. What emergesis a poignant portrait of a proud woamn who maintains her dignity despite the hard hand life has dealt her. . . a love note to the 'upper class poor'. . . . "-- "San Diego Union Tribune"