Our House in the Last World

New York: Persea Books, 1983. BW7 - A 2nd printing hardcover book SIGNED and inscribed by Oscar Hijuelos to previous owner on the half-title page in very good condition in very good dust jacket. Dust jacket has some wrinkling, chipping and crease on the edges and corners, less than an inch tear on the back bottom right side, some scattered light stains, scratches and rubbing, tanning, and light shelf wear. Book has some bumped corners, wrinkling on the spine edges, light tanning and shelf wear. 9"x6", 235 pages. Satisfaction Guaranteed. It is a rare delight to come upon a first novel that shows a fine technical mastery and also succeeds in penetrating the surface of things to reveal the disorderly, often troubling, inner life of its characters. Our House in the Last World is just such a novel, and its publication marks the emergence of a new American writer of uncommon promise. In this story about the Santinio family, transplanted from Cuba to New York City, we are offered an intimate portrait of immigrant life. America is "the last world" for them, their final stopping-place. For Alejo, the father, it means escape from dreary farm life in San Pedro, perhaps a business of his own. For Mercedes, his wife, America is the last in an infinite line of worlds. She has had other lives, she believes, and will live again after her death. For the Santinio sons, Horacio and Hector, "the last world" is not only last-chance America, but also Cuba - the world before they were born, a place of sensuous beauty, ease, and ancestral memory, a mythical home. Spanning the years 1939 to the present, from Alejo's courtship of Mercedes to shortly after his death, the novel is told from a retrospective point of view that can only be considered that of the younger son, Hector. For him, the world breaks down into two languages, Spanish and English. Do women fall for his father because of his "Cubanness"? What does it means when he himself contracts a "Cuban illness," when a year in a children's hospital "cures" him of his Spanish and leaves him speaking only English? Such issues are the stuff of Hector's struggle toward manhood, of his efforts to come to terms with a father who disappears for days, drinks and gambles his family's money away, but who possesses a tremendous dignity and who is a hero in Hector's eyes. Filled with ghosts and the delicate presence of flowers, drunken men who hang onto the walls as if on a tossing ship, the sights and sounds of Oriente Province and New York City, the sweet nutty films of a Cuban drink, the music and films of the 50's, lusty fantasies, and the toughest of city realities, Our House in the Last World is a work of beauty and foreboding.. Signed by Author. 2nd Printing. Hardcover. Very Good/Very Good. 8vo - over 7¾" - 9¾" tall.