Set in New York City in the 1950s and 1960s, this is the coming-of-age story of Hector Santinio, the American-born son of Cuban immigrants, who is haunted by tales of “home”--a Cuba of ancestral memory, beauty, sensuousness, and ease, a place he has never known—and by the sudden death of his father. His struggle toward adulthood is inseparable from his struggle to understand his “Cubanness” and to come to terms with his father, an exuberant, charming, and generous hotel cook who drank too much, disappeared for days, and gambled the family’s money away. Moving, intimate, and highly autobiographical, this unforgettable novel of immigrant life is written with the same compelling power of language, character, and narrative that won Oscar Hijuelos worldwide acclaim. Includes an Introduction and Afterword by the author, as well as a new Foreword by Pablo Medina, author of Cubop City Blues and the memoir Exiled Memories, aming others.