Mambo Kings tells
the story of two brothers, Cesar and Nestor, who grew up in Cuba and immigrated
to the United States in 1949. They found jobs in a meat-packing plant in New
York City by day and formed a band, The Mambo Kings, for which they played,
sang, and danced by night. The
highlight of their brief celebrity was an appearance on the I Love Lucy
show, as Ricky’s Cuban cousins visiting New York and playing a special show at
the Tropicana, after Desi Arnaz heard the brothers’ band one night and invited
them on the show.
The whole book, except for a brief prologue and epilogue, is
narrated by Cesar, the older brother, as he sits in a decrepit hotel room in
1980, drinking whiskey and waiting to die, thinking back over his 62 years of
life. That’s why the novel sometimes feels like it is rambling and long-winded;
it is the remembrances of a tired old man. The story jumps back and forth through time, sometimes going
all the way back to his childhood with an abusive father in Cuba, sometimes
recalling their glory days as the Mambo Kings, sometimes considering recent
years with family and friends, and occasionally even settling briefly in the
present.
It’s an interesting story, and most of our book group agreed
that one of the best parts of it was being transported to that particular time
and place, within the musical Cuban immigrant community of New York in the
1950’s, when men wore hats and suits, women dressed up to go to the store, and
everyone lived for dancing to live music on the weekends. Hijuelos’ prose does transport the
reader; his novel is filled with lush sensory details: the vibrant flowers of
Cuba, the noise-filled dance halls of New York, the sights, sounds, smells, and
feelings of living in that time and place.
Cesar himself is a stereotypical Latin American male: macho,
self-confident and swaggering, and an enormous womanizer (who loves to recall his sexual conquests in great detail!). His younger brother was quieter, more
introspective, and less confident, yearning for true love. The prologue and epilogue are narrated
by Nestor’s son, Eugenio, so there is a brief glimpse of his perspective, too,
as the next generation.
448 pages, Hyperion
(If you are interested in reading more about Cuba before and during the revolution, I highly recommend Carlos Eire's wonderful memoir, Waiting for Snow in Havana.)
