The Fourteen Sisters of Emilio Montez O'Brien

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Irish American Nelson OBrien fell passionately in love with the poetess Mariela Montez while photographing the ravages of battle in Mariela's native Cuba during the Spanish-American War. After marrying, they moved to the United States to start a new life, settling in a small Pennsylvania town where Nelson took over the Jewel Box Movie Theater. Together, they had a remarkable fifteen children: fourteen daughters and one lone son.

In Oscar Hijueloss The Fourteen Sisters of Emilio Montez O'Brien, the lives, loves, and tragedies of this sprawling Irish Cuban family unfold. Over the course of a century, each member moves in and out of each others lives, traversing Cuba, New York, California, Alaska, and Ireland, while Margaritathe Montez OBriens eldest daughterruminates on the nature of femininity, sex, love, and earthly happiness. And as Margarita learns and grows in an overwhelmingly female environment, she cant help but contrast her experiences with those of Emilio, her intensely masculine brother, whose B-movie career in the 1950s has left him adrift and frustrated, with little hope of success.

Lush and gorgeously written, The Fourteen Sisters of Emilio Montez O'Brien is a masterwork by one of America's greatest writers. Reckoning with cultural assimilation and complex family dynamics, the novel elicits tears and laughter while tenderly revealing the bounteous heart and exhilarating adventures of a warm, passionate family.

Reviews

"Matchless, soaring prose."Publishers Weekly

"A beautiful pastorale, loosely based on the idea of the limited text implied by photographs, in which the lives of 17 characters are developed . . . Hijuelos composes women's stories with a loving hand."Library Journal

Author Bio

Oscar Hijuelos (1951-2013), a native New Yorker and the son of Cuban immigrants, was a Pulitzer Prize winning author of nine novels and a memoir and a recipient of the Rome Prize awarded by The American Academy of Arts and Letters. He also received grants from the National Endowment for the Arts and the Guggenheim Foundation. He became the first Latino winner of the Pulitzer Prize for fiction in 1990 for his international bestseller The Mambo Kings Play Songs of Love and his novels have been translated into more than 40 languages.