The Mambo Kings Play Songs of Love is a 1989 novel by Oscar Hijuelos.
It tells the story of two Cuban brothers, musicians, Cesar and Nestor Castillo. Cesar gets into the music scene in Havana and brings his little brother Nestor after him. The brothers emigrate from Havana to New York in 1949, and eventually form a band, The Mambo Kings, with Cesar as leader and lead singer and Nestor as a first-rate trumpet player. They have success as a live act and even make a few records, culminating in an appearance on I Love Lucy.
But all is not well with the brothers. Cesar leads the stereotypical life of a Latin lover, and he does so to great excess, drinking and whoring and abandoning a wife and daughter in Cuba. Nestor, a far more serious sort, has a passionate affair with a woman named Maria, one which ends when she dumps him for another man. Nestor can't get past his lost love, continually mourning for Maria even while marrying a gorgeous, lusty woman named Delores who bears him two children. One night, tragedy strikes, and then nothing is ever the same.
Adapted into 1992 film The Mambo Kings, which was the English-language film debut of Antonio Banderas.
Tropes:
- The Alcoholic: Cesar, who drinks and drinks and drinks, until he eventually drinks himself to death. At the beginning when Eugenio pops in to see his uncle, Cesar is falling-down drunk in the middle of the day.
- All Girls Want Bad Boys: Nestor spends the rest of his life pining for his lover back in Cuba, who left him for a man who beats her, apparently for no other reason than that her abusive lover is more macho than quiet, introspective Nestor.
- Anachronic Order: The Framing Device device of a drunken, bitter Cesar's memories allows the narrative to flit back and forward in time, as will a man's memories. The first pages of the novel have Cesar thinking about how he and Nestor formed a band in New York, while later chapters go back to Cuba and deal with their pasts on the island.
- …And That Little Girl Was Me: In-Universe, played straight in Forward America!, the cheesy self-help book by D.D. Vanderbilt that Cesar reads in an effort to pull himself out of depression. Vanderbilt writes in the (fictional) book about a man mired in depression who decides to change his life, then goes to his boss with a big business proposal, and naturally becomes happy and successful. The excerpt ends with the writer saying "I was that man!"
- Book Ends: The opening chapter has Eugenio coming over to Cesar's dingy room to tell him about the I Love Lucy episode being on the air, only to find his uncle in a drunken stupor. The last chapter is set after Cesar's death and has Eugenio looking up an elderly Desi Arnaz.
- Buxom Beauty Standard: Played straight several times, as Cesar, who has a very crude and adolescent attitude towards sexuality, admires big breasts on women like his Caucasian girlfriend Vanna as well as Delores, whom he begins to lust for.
- Diabolus ex Machina: The story turns sideways about halfway through, when, out of nowhere, Nestor is killed in a car wreck.
- Driven to Suicide: After his last lover rejects him, for being old and gross, Cesar makes the deliberate, intentional decision to drink himself to death. Despite knowing that medically he must eat a restricted diet and never consume alcohol, he starts pigging out and drinking constantly again, while also giving away his possessions.
- Framing Device: Much of the novel is framed as the memories of a drunken, maudlin Cesar, falling around his shabby hotel room in 1980. The novel often departs from this conceit, however, to include the POV of Delores and Nestor.
- Historical Domain Character: Several, people in the Cuban music scene, but most prominently Desidero "Desi" Arnaz and Lucille Ball. It turns out Desi once met Cesar back in Havana. When they strike up their acquaintance again they hit it off and Desi invites the Mambo Kings on his show. Desi and Lucy come to visit the Castillos in their apartment, and Delores is a little uncomfortable at hosting the rich Hollywood star, Lucille Ball.
- An Immigrant's Tale: Two Cuban musicians make their way to America and start a band. The brothers wind up prospering in America, forming a pretty good band, but tragedy and personal demons destroy everything.
- Latin Lover: Cesar is actually described as "the Latin-lover type", and he plays the trope straight, having phenomenal success at seducing and bedding women. His problem is that he can't relate to women on any other level but that.
- Macho Latino: Deconstructed. Cesar is this to the extreme, drinking and whoring and bedding truckloads of women while being a super-macho bandleader. The result of this is that he dies a forgotten, drunken wreck, forgotten by everybody including the daughter he abandoned. Delores shows how this culture victimizes women; she wants to go to college and educate herself, but Nestor refuses to allow it because Cuban husbands aren't supposed to let Cuban wives do things like that. Nestor is not this, being a quiet man given to depression. But the expectation to be a Macho Latino leaves him unable to deal with his feelings and the world, and makes things worse, which at one point the book explains in detail."He didn't know what was going on. Cubans then (and Cubans now) didn't know about psychological problems. Cubans who felt bad went to their friends, ate and drank and went out dancing. Most of the time they wouldn't think about their problems. A psychological problem was part of someone's character. Cesar was un macho grande; Nestor, un infeliz. People who hurt bad enough and wanted cures expected these cures to come immediately."
- Not-So-Forgotten Birthday: In one scene Cesar has turned 38 while the band is on the road, and is hurt that nobody remembered. Nestor wishes him happy birthday and apologizes for forgetting. Then Cesar opens the door to his hotel room and finds a gorgeous naked hooker inside.
- One-Hit Wonder: In-Universe, the Mambo Kings get a break and play Nestor's song "Beautiful Maria of My Soul" on I Love Lucy. The song is a minor radio hit and Nestor and Cesar are briefly celebrities in the Latin music scene.
- The One That Got Away
- Nestor never does get over Maria, pining for her endlessly until his death, wallowing in depression even when he has Delores, who is loving and supportive and also very lusty and sexy.
- In Cesar's darker moments he thinks about how he screwed up his marriage and should have tried harder to be a halfway decent husband.
- Switching P.O.V.: The novel bounces around between the POV of Cesar, Nestor, and Delores, and the opening is from the POV of Nestor's son Eugenio.
- Title Drop: "The Mambo Kings Play Songs of Love" was the title of a record that the band recorded.
- Two-Act Structure: Nestor's death in a car accident comes halfway through the novel. Nothing is ever the same after that, as Cesar is so guilt-ridden over Nestor's death that he can't lead the band any more, and his musical career is over. The second half of the book is his slow slide into alcoholism and despair.
