{"product_id":"9781592407187","title":"Thoughts without Cigarettes","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003eA beloved Pulitzer Prize-winning novelist turns his pen to the real people and places that have influenced his life and literature.  A comprehensive look into the mind of a writer.\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eBorn in Manhattan’s Morningside Heights to Cuban immigrants in 1951, Oscar Hijuelos introduces readers to the colorful circumstances of his upbringing. The son of a Cuban hotel worker and exuberant poetry-writing mother, his story, played out against the backdrop of a working-class neighborhood, takes on an even richer dimension when his relationship with his family and culture changes forever. During a sojourn with his mother in pre-Castro Cuba, he catches a disease that sends him into a Dickensian home for terminally ill children. The yearlong stay estranges him from the very language and people he had so loved.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eWith a cast of characters whose stories are both funny and tragic, \u003ci\u003eThoughts Without Cigarettes \u003c\/i\u003efollows Hijuelos's subsequent quest for his true identity — a mystery whose resolution he eventually discovers hidden away in the trappings of his fiction, and which finds its most glorious expression in his best-known book,\u003ci\u003eThe Mambo Kings Play Songs of Love\u003c\/i\u003e. Illuminating the most dazzling scenes from his novels, \u003ci\u003eThoughts Without Cigarettes \u003c\/i\u003ereveals the true stories and indelible memories that shaped a literary genius.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Penguin Publishing Group","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":47062362095856,"sku":"9781592407187","price":18.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0737\/7593\/9824\/files\/9781592407187_p0.jpg?v=1763812365","url":"https:\/\/shop-qa.barnesandnoble.com\/products\/9781592407187","provider":"Barnes \u0026 Noble (DEV)","version":"1.0","type":"link"}