For an author of influence like the late Oscar Hijuelos, a literary body of work endures long past the final keystroke. Born in 1951 to Cuban immigrant parents in Manhattan, Hijuelos graced the book world with titles like Our House in the Last World; The Mambo Kings Play Songs of Love (for which he won the 1990 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction, becoming the first Hispanic writer to receive the honor); Beautiful Maria of My Soul; and Thoughts Without Cigarettes: A Memoir. Since Hijuelos’s death in 2013, his wife and fellow author Lori Marie Carlson-Hijuelos has served as caretaker of and champion for his oeuvre. Now, Grand Central Publishing is fulfilling one of Carlson-Hijuelos’s aspirations for her late husband’s books by reissuing the entirety of Hijuelos’s fiction for adult readers in beautifully designed new editions. PW spoke with Carlson-Hijuelos about carrying on Hijuelos’s legacy, his impact on the literary world, his faith, and how the two authors inspired one another in marriage and in writing.
What does it mean to you to see your late husband’s body of work reissued for a new generation of readers?
It is one of the most satisfying and thrilling times of my life, maybe the most. To see Oscar’s fiction get so much attention in multiple ways is a blessing. The week after Oscar’s death, I established three goals to guard and share his literature with the world: I knew I had to find the very best home for the bulk of Oscar’s archives (I have); I had to make a musical of The Mambo Kings Play Songs of Love with the finest Latino artists in the entertainment world (this has begun with a bang); and last but not least I had to bring together Oscar’s novels under one publishing roof (happily accomplished with Grand Central/Hachette). With the reissuing of Oscar’s fiction, thanks to Grand Central, in a format that is immediately identifiable by a striking design, his artistry will be able to reach multiple generations of American and international readers for decades upon decades.
From your perspective as a writer and an educator, can you speak to the significance of your late husband’s work? What enduring impact did books like The Mambo Kings Play Songs of Love have on public awareness about the immigrant experience?
I’d have to say that, to me as a professional in the field of Latin American and Latino literatures—I began my work at the Center for Inter-American Relations in promoting, editing, and writing about writers of Hispanic heritage—it would be the fact that Oscar was a first in American literary history. A Pulitzer in fiction had finally been won by someone of Hispanic heritage, and Cuban American at that! When Mambo Kings was published and won the Pulitzer, American literature was changed forever. It was a landmark moment in our nation’s cultural brilliance: Latinos were finally welcome at the table. Even though it took a long time to have the healthy publishing situation for Latinos we now enjoy, Oscar’s fame and the success of Mambo Kings put a spotlight on the immigrant experience in the United States. Just one example of this: I was speaking at an event at City College and a young woman, during the q&a, stood up and said to me, “Mrs. Hijuelos, I want you to know that it was because of your husband’s Pulitzer Prize–winning novel that I have decided to become an immigration lawyer. I am the daughter of immigrants, myself. And I have come to New York City to pursue my legal education because this is where your husband was born and where he worked.”
Would you be able to share some insight into what you feel inspired your husband to create the books he did?
Oscar was a servant to his craft, to his art. Very well versed in the classics. He read the ancients a lot—the major Greek philosophers, first-century Roman historians, poets and playwrights. He lived to reach his soul. And the demands that his soul placed on him were never-ending. He dug deep into his heart to say and reveal truths about humanity and humanity’s uneven relationship to a higher power so that he could be at peace with what he thought of as “goodness.” Oscar suffered when people were hateful, unfair, and duplicitous.
My late husband wrote, struggling, every single day—even on holidays such as Thanksgiving, Christmas, New Year’s, Easter. Why? Well, in Oscar’s case, his writing was intrinsically related to his relationship to God. This may come as a surprise to many. He was silent about his faith, for the most part, in public and even with his closest friends and literary pals—many of them had no idea about his interest in Catholicism and his profound attention to all avenues of genuine spirituality, or his deep reverence. But he was not silent with me. We spoke about God, our understanding of life and death, Jesus Christ, the saints—particularly Paul—and the afterlife all the time.
Was it common for you and Oscar to exchange ideas and share your work as you were both writing?
So common.... The first thing we did when we woke up was share our thoughts about our work, pillow to pillow. Breakfast was a silent time. No speaking during coffee and cereal. But before that, we shared everything that was on our hearts and minds about our work. Then, at the end of the day, an hour before dinner, we gave each other pages to read for comment and critique.
What do you hope new readers will take away from reading Oscar’s work?
I hope that Oscar’s sui generis, extraordinary thinking, will be planted in new readers’ hearts so that his ideas about beauty and moral excellence will grow into endless personal acts of commitment to heal and mend this broken world. And I hope that he will be understood as a quintessentially American writer. Because that is what he is. Born and raised in New York City.
How about your own book news? What are you writing?
I am writing a memoir titled A Writing Marriage to be edited/published by Gretchen Young, the publisher of Regalo Press, which is an imprint of Post Hill Press.
