Our House in the Last World

Wonderful literary storytelling from a powerful voice. It’s always delightful to see the invention that Oscar Hijeulos brings to a story.

First published in 1983; published by Grand Central Publishing on April 9, 2024

Our House in the Last World is the story of an immigrant family that struggles to find its identity in America. The story of the Santinio family begins with Mercedes Sorrea. Her father was a poet but he made a living in the timber business in Cuba after emigrating from Spain. Mercedes had a good life until her father misjudged the reliability of Cuban politicians and suffered a financial downfall.

In 1937, while working as a ticket seller in a movie theater in Holguin, Mercedes meets Alejo Santinio. He woos her and, over the objections of his possessive sister Buita, marries her. Alejo’s sister Margarita is married to a cigar salesman in New York. She convinced Alejo to move to America.

Mercedes views the relocation as a chance to get away from Buita. Margarita has a baby (Ki-ki) and Mercedes soon has one of her own (Horacio). Unfortunately for Mercedes, Buita travels to New York when her husband’s band is booked to perform at a club. Buita once again makes Mercedes’ life miserable — a recurring theme in the story.

Although the plot is eventful — it covers almost four decades in the family’s life — the story is character driven. Alejo is a large, affable man with an ability to charm women that he will never lose. He works in a hotel kitchen. He dreams of owning a small store but he lacks the courage or drive to abandon the security of a union job. His willingness to work for low wages assures that he will never be fired, despite drinking on the job with his Cuban co-workers and stealing frozen steaks for his family.

Alejo is a product of his culture — a believer in the supremacy of men and of their entitlement to force their wives to submit to their will — but, despite his futile efforts to win the affection of his sons, he is only comfortable while drinking with his Cuban friends or seducing Cuban women. When Castro comes into power, he is pro-Castro until he becomes anti-Castro, but he’s happy to agree with any political sentiment expressed by a friend over a glass of whiskey.

Horacio is embarrassed by his father and escapes to a more promising life by joining the military. Horacio’s younger brother Hector contracts a serious illness while visiting Cuba with his parents. Mercedes treats Hector as an invalid from that point forward. As he grows up, Hector always feels “as if he were in costume, his true nature unknown to others and perhaps even to himself. He was part ‘Pop,’ part Mercedes; part Cuban, part American — all wrapped tightly inside a skin which he sometimes could not move.” The childless Buita’s scheming to lure Hector away from his mother never ends, and her residence in Miami — a cleaner, more Cuban-friendly city than New York, where she lives in an air-conditioned house with a pool — might assure that she prevails.

Mercedes has justifiable grievances about Alejo’s unwillingness to find a better job, his drinking and violence, and Buita’s constant criticism, but she’s allowed her grievances to overtake her personality. She is defined by her anger and fits of hysteria but — again, perhaps because she is a product of her culture — she would rather complain about Alejo than leave him.

Many novels about dysfunctional families never distinguish themselves from soap operas, but Our House in the Last World offers insights into why families might become dysfunctional. Alcohol is an obvious factor, but meddling by relatives, the difficulty of adjusting to a new life, and the clash of cultural values all play disruptive roles in the Santinio family. There are no monsters in the family. Alejo has been taught to control his wife and sons with violence but he restrains himself and looks for ways to express his love of his sons. Mercedes doesn’t mean to be a bad mother, but she does not have the tools to overcome her helplessness. She instead develops the kind of self-pitying personality that exhausts people. Horacio understands that Buita has poisoned Hector against his mother but he can do little to overcome his younger brother’s resentments.

The novel’s final section is a bit strange, as characters converse with ghosts and debate the reality of their memories and perceptions. One character exists briefly as an orchid. Too much attention is paid to dreams for my reality-based taste. As Oscar Hijuelos’ first novel, Our House in the Last World doesn’t quite have the reach or depth of The Mambo Kings Play Songs of Love, but it explores similar themes. The book is a valuable contribution to the literature of the immigrant experience of American life.

This edition features an introduction by Junot Díaz.

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The lives and experiences of a family of immigrants with roots in Cuba

In 1930’s Cuba, a lovely young woman named Mercedes meets Alejo, a handsome young man who courts her. Mercedes is from a fine family whose financial status worsened upon the sudden death of her father, necessitating a move to humbler living quarters and lowering their standard of living. Alejo is the younger son of a comfortably situated family who is allowed to lead a somewhat aimless life while his older brother shoulders the workload of running the family farm. They are two dreamers who marry and long to escape their mundane lives, and when Alejo inherits money they decide to travel to America where one of Alejo’s (many) sisters lives with her husband. Mercedes is delighted to finally get away from Alejo’s eldest sister (who has made it quite clear that she despises her brother’s bride and goes out of her way to terrorize Mercedes at every opportunity). But dreams without plans do not always end well, and such is the case for Mercedes and Alejo. He takes a job as a cook for a fancy hotel, and while he makes a living he never rises above that position, mostly out of fear of failure. They have two children together, first Horacio and then Hector. Alejo takes to drinking and fooling around on the side, and Mercedes struggles to accept her new life, never learning to speak English very well and feeling the prejudice against people who look and sound different from their neighbors. It takes courage to leave one’s homeland and start a new life in a country very different from one’s own, and it takes even more when life does not turn out as you had hoped it would.

In this, author Oscar Hijuelos’ first novel, it is the characters and the sense of place which resonate most strongly. Starting in the lush and languid setting of Hoguín, Cuba, in the years before Castro and communism took over, and then moving to the Morningside Heights area of New York City (before Columbia University expanded into the community, eventually forcing out many who called the area home), the journey of the Santinio clan is the story of so many families from so many countries who yearn to reach the United States and claim their share of the American dream. As do many, Mercedes and Alejo pine for the Cuba they left behind, conveniently forgetting the not-so-good bits that were part of their desire to leave. And as the years pass, it eventually becomes impossible for them to return to the country they love as the Castro government solidifies power and crushes dissent. Their two sons grow up feeling neither completely American nor Cuban, but an uneasy mix of the two, a feeling they share with many first generation Americans. Bitterness, sorrow, anger and eventually violence enter the Santinio house, and love and abuse live there hand in hand. It is said that this is Mr. Hijuelos’ most autobiographical novel, which is both logical but also makes me sad. What he writes in both his introduction and his afterword are not to be missed (nor is the forward by Junot Díaz), as they give a reader an insight into how the novel came to be and how he, years after its publication, felt about what he wrote. It is not a happy book, but it is not without hope, and the characters’ failings are told with compassion and love. Those who have read Mr. Hijuelos other novels, including the Pulitzer Prize winning The Mambo Kings Play Songs of Love, must absolutely add this to the top of their TBR pile, as should fans of other Latin authors like Sandra Cisneros, Junot Díaz, and Isabel Allende. It is a book about place, about family, about love trying to survive amidst disappointment, ghosts and superstitions, flashy clothes and the foods of home. Many thanks to NetGalley and Grand Central Publishing for gifting me a copy of this new edition, I have a better understanding of the journey that so many people from around the world, including my own ancestors, made as they came here to begin a new life.

A sweeping tale of an immigrant family, imperfect, violent, but always family. What they leave behind will always remain with them, tangibles like food and music and intangibles like spirits and beliefs. You carry who you are, no matter where you live. Family members make their way in this new country, some taking more difficult roads than others. But the message always is, family is everything.
I loved this story.

So good to see this reissued. It's a lovely exploration of immigration and family. Know that it wanders and that the plot is less than the characters but also that the language is beautiful. Thanks to netgalley for the DRC. This is thoughtful and thought provoking.

I was enraptured by this quintessential immigrant story which is being republished on April 9, 2024,, following the death of Pulitzer Prize winning author Oscar Hijuelos. Alejo Santinio and his young wife Mercedes, leave their home in Oriente Province, Cuba in 1943, to seek success and magical riches in the USA. Things do not go according to plans and dreams. Alejo is generous to a fault. He hasn’t a.clue how to save money and soon finds solace in the stupor of alcoholic dreams. Mercedes’ in unable to adjust to her new life. She remains resentful of her lot in life and obsessively misses the people she left behind in Cuba. Of course the marriage suffers.

Over the span of four decades. The Santinios parent two sons , Horacio and Hector. Horatio is aware of his unhappiness in a dysfunctional family and enlists in the Air Force to escape a bleak life in the poverty and misery of his upbringing. Hector, named for his beloved paternal uncle, is babied by his mother and over loved by a father who is unable to express that love. His identity is stifled as he remains part Cuban and part American with no firm grounding in either word.

Written in poetically beautiful language, this is not a simple book to read. Instead, it delves deeply into the immigrant experience of not quite belonging anywhere, with stumbling blocks and hardships at every turn. The characters are life size with decidedly set temperaments, longings and hurts a mile wide. A magical world of dreams permeates their reality and lends a surreal quality to the story line.
I loved every page, every word of Hijuelo’s first novel. I highly recommend it to those who enjoy an immersive plot, centered more in a troubled reality than a uplifting one . Many thanks to NetGalley and Grand Central Publishing for an ARC in exchange for my honest review.

I really liked this edition of this book and found the writing style to be very pretty and enthralling. Warning that this book is not for anyone who needs a clear and actionable plot - this is slow and very character driven!

It's definitely a slow book, but I think that was more beneficial than detrimental to the story as a whole; I really got to know the characters and the inner workings of their minds.

Immersing myself in Our House in the Last World, I was transported to a world both familiar and unknown, brought to life by Hijuelos' vivid prose. I was deeply invested in Hector's journey, navigating the complexities of cultural identity. The characters came alive, eliciting laughter, tears, and cheers. This poignant exploration of identity, family, and belonging reminds us that our stories shape us and the past shapes our present. Reading Our House in the Last World felt like finding a new home, a place that will stay with me forever. ♥️

Ahhh what a great autobiography! This is a classic family saga and coming of age story. It talks about a first generation Cuban American kid whose immigrant parents (Alejo & Mercedes) come to NYC in the mid-1940s in search of a better life

This book unpacks a lot: family values, Cuban culture / identity and the many trials and tribulations that come when migrating to a different country.

When Alejo and Mercedes arrive in NYC, they immediately find other Cubans who they befriend. They are like one big family, always helping each other out. Alejo has many opportunities “para hechar pa lante” but because of fear, the American dream falls flat for him. Mecedes who comes from an educated upper class does not settle in well. She feels lonely when Alejo leaves her to go to work and after her kids are born, their marriage begins to spiral downward.

As the kids (Horacio and Hector) get older, they face many identity challenges, both at home and in their neighborhood. Their family dynamic is extremely complicated. We see how their parent's constant arguing, their dad’s drunkenness and mother’s delusion have severely affected their behavior and personal lives, especially Hector.

This book is very descriptive and contains a lot of Cuban historical facts. Despite it being a slow burner, it hit home and I loved it.