The Mambo Kings Play Songs of Love: A Novel - Softcover

"One lush, tipsy, all-night mambo of a novel about Cuban musicians in strange places like New York City". -- People

"By turns street-smart and lyrical, impassioned and reflective, "The Mambo Kings Play Songs of Love"is a rich and provocative book--a moving portrait of a man, his family, a community and a time."-- Michiko Kakutani, "New York Times""One lush, tipsy, all-night mambo of a novel about Cuban musicians in strange places like New York City."-- "People""Brilliant... memorable... a heady and powerful triumph... one of the most spectacularly vibrant and moving works by an American in years."-- Alice Metcalf Miller, "Cleveland Plain Dealer"

"A rich and sorrowful novel... that alternates crisp narrative with opulent musings--the language of everyday and the language of longing. You finish feeling... ready to throw up your arms and cry, Que bueno es! Mr. Hijuelos is writing music of the heart."--New York Times Book Review

"Brilliant... memorable... a heady and powerful triumph... one of the most spectacularly vibrant and moving works by an American in years."--Alice Metcalf Miller, Cleveland Plain Dealer

It's 1949. It's the era of the mambo, and two young Cuban musicians make their way up from Havana to the grand stage of New York. The Castillo brothers, workers by day, become by night stars of the dance halls, where their orchestra plays the lush, sensuous, pulsing music that earns them the title of the Mambo Kings. This is their moment of youth -- a golden time that thirty years later will be remembered with nostalgia and deep affection. In The Mambo Kings Play Songs of Love, Oscar Hijuelos has created a rich and enthralling novel about passion and loss, memory and desire.