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Thoughts Without Cigarettes: A Memoir Hardcover – Bargain Price, June 2, 2011

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Oscar Hijuelos (Author)
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Oscar Hijuelos (Author)
4.1 out of 5 stars 12 customer reviews
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Product Details

  • Hardcover: 384 pages
  • Publisher: Gotham (June 2, 2011)
  • Language: English
  • ISBN-10: 1592406297
  • ASIN: B005ZO6K96
  • Product Dimensions: 5.8 x 1.3 x 9.5 inches
  • Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds
  • Average Customer Review: 4.1 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (12 customer reviews)
  • Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,710,661 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Top Customer Reviews

5.0 out of 5 starsThe Making of a Novelist
By rejoyce on October 24, 2011
Format: Hardcover Verified Purchase
Oscar Hijuelos' memoir, Thoughts Without Cigarettes, is a vibrant, absorbing look at the life that produced novels such as the Pulitzer Prize-winning The Mambo Kings Play Songs of Love and Our House in the Last World, Hijuelos' first novel. The son of a working class Cuban immigrant father and an irrepressible, self-involved poet-mother, the author grew up in the interracial Morningside Heights neighborhood of New York that abuts Columbia University and East Harlem.

Hijuelos describes how he contracted nephritis during an otherwise idyllic visit to Cuba, and the subsequent year-long stay in a Connecticut hospital, which resulted in his estrangement from the Spanish language, his Cuban American identity, and the neighborhood. Despite his intense loneliness and alienation, Hijuelos doggedly made himself into a novelist, studying with Susan Sontag and Donald Barthelme at the City College of New York, composing his first novel nights and weekends while working at an advertising agency. The novel was favorably reviewed, including in The New York Times, but sold modestly.

While on an unexpected Prix de Rome fellowship, stimulated by the lush Mediterranean environment and a Korean girlfriend, Hijuelos started working on what would become The Mambo Kings. After two years in Italy, he returned to New York only to find a bill for overdue IRS back taxes. He was only able to resolve the situation when his agent negotiated an advance for his second novel with Farrar, Straus & Giroux.

In 1990 The Mambo Kings Plays Songs of Love was awarded the Pulitzer Prize, and Hijuelos became the first Latino author to win the coveted honor.Read more ›
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5.0 out of 5 starsInteresting and enlightening
By forever student on December 9, 2012
Format: Kindle Edition Verified Purchase
This a great read for anyone who is interested in Latino writers, or anyone who enjoys memoirs. It gives background information for his Mambo Kings Play Songs of Love and adds depth to the novel. He's a good writer, and I hope he writes more books.
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5.0 out of 5 starsSuperb recounting of road to success
By Ira Krawitz on December 17, 2012
Format: Hardcover Verified Purchase
Oscar Hijuelos careful tracks the highs and lows - emotionally, physically and professionally - as he finds his true passion and calling - writing about his Cuban roots and their relationship to his parents immigration to the US prior to his birth. Written candidly and in a self-deprecating manner, Thoughts Without Cigarettes demonstrates that the path to a Pulitzer Prize is built through hard work, dedication, failures and self-doubts but accompanied by a relentless drive to succeed. A wonderful memoir.
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4.0 out of 5 starsSaw this guy on book TV
By larryfine on August 16, 2011
Format: Hardcover
Some of the authors interviewed on CSPAN are senile, or pompous, or ditzy, but this guy gave direct answers to questions put to him, so I decided to read his book. Its a good read about him growing up in NYC, his Cuban background, his writing struggles, and difficulties with his health and family. I would recommend this book, and now try will read his pornographic novel, the Mambo Kings. I'm surprised no other customers reviewed this book, and I think the author would be disappointed by this.
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4.0 out of 5 starsHumorous and interesting
By A. Chambers on November 10, 2012
Format: Paperback
Oscar Hijuelos was four years old when he contracted nephritis during a visit with family in Cuba. The resulting hospital stay would alter his life forever. He went into the hospital as a Spanish-speaking first-generation Cuban-American. After a year of being insulted and treated badly by English-speaking nurses solely because he did not understand what they said to him, he came out of the hospital as an English-speaking "former" Cuban. I was appalled at the way the nurses treated a small child because of his language and heritage. Apparently, this experience scarred him to the extent that even after returning to his Spanish-speaking home, he refused to speak even one word of Spanish, or even acknowledge that he understood it when he heard it spoken. I find it ironic that he was chastised in the hospital for not knowing English, then spent years at odds with his family for not speaking Spanish.

Due to his hospital stay, Hijuelos started school late, and unable to read either English or Spanish. He struggled with English, feeling that it was somehow forbidden to him. Despite that, he is now very articulate and even eloquent at times. I find it interesting that he didn't even like to read growing up, preferring comic books because he could see what was happening without being hampered by words. He seems to have grown out of that. He is the first Latino to win the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction.

I liked that there were gaps in his memory and that he doesn't claim to remember or know every single thing that has ever happened. I find that this makes memoirs more believable. There was quite a lot of name-dropping, but Hijuelos did have the benefit of being involved in the NYC literary/arts community.Read more ›
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5.0 out of 5 starsWonderful story
By mariya makosh on December 4, 2013
Format: Kindle Edition Verified Purchase
I really love it! Wonderful story. Full of dreams and love and longing... I've never been to that part of the world.... And suddenly it becomes so close.... like if I could here its music and smell its smells and worry its worries...
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