Empress of the splendid season / Oscar Hijuelos.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Hijuelos, Oscar.

Contributor:

Gotham Book Mart Collection (University of Pennsylvania)

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Cuban American women--New York (State)--New York--Fiction.

Cuban American women.

New York (State)--New York.

Women cleaning personnel--New York (State)--New York--Fiction.

Women cleaning personnel.

Cuban American families--Conduct of life--Fiction.

Cuban American families.

Cuban American families--Conduct of life.

Genre:

Fiction.

Domestic fiction.

Penn Provenance:

Gotham Book Mart (former owner) (Gotham Book Mart Collection copy)

Physical Description:

342 pages ; 25 cm

Edition:

First edition.

Place of Publication:

New York : HarperFlamingo, [1999]

Summary:

In his new novel, Hijuelos tells the story of Lydia Espana, a beautiful and formerly prosperous emigre from pre-Castro Cuba, who becomes a cleaning lady in New York. Once the spoiled, pampered daughter of a small-town mayor and adored by men - a 'queen of the Conga line' - she is forced because of a youthful sexual indiscretion to leave home and, in 1947, finds herself suddenly living the life of the working poor. In time she falls in love with Raul, a humble waiter. One night in a Manhattan ballroom, in the middle of a bolero, Raul proposes marriage, for Lydia is his "empress of the most beautiful and splendid season, which is love." A life of promise is disrupted when Raul falls ill and Lydia, finding employment as a domestic, becomes the head of the family. Striving to educate her two children, Rico and Alicia, in the style of the upper class, she must endure a lesson in humility, cleaning the homes of New Yorkers much better off than herself. Among her employers is Mr. Osprey, a reserved and kindly lawyer, who eventually takes an interest in her family's well-being and, during the turmoil of the 1960s, intervenes at a critical juncture in the life of her teenage son, Rico. Throughout this novel Lydia remains a sensual and powerful woman who meets the trials of a lonely life with humor and a gleam of triumph in her eye - a sense that she is someone special - an empress of fortitude, of dignity.

Local Notes:

Gotham Book Mart Collection copy has dustjacket retained.

ISBN:

0060175702

OCLC:

39368582