Kelly is an instructor of creative writing and literature at several colleges in Illinois. In this essay, Kelly explores the idea that The Mambo Kings Play Songs of Love would have been a more powerful novel if the character of Nestor had been edited out.

Oscar Hijuelos's novel The Mambo Kings Play Songs of Love offers readers a rich, vibrant concoction of characters and details, as hot and lively as the music at the core of the story. The narrative, in fact, may be a little too rich for its own good: readers come away from it knowing little more about the central character, Cesar Castillo, than they do about such arcana as the types of underwear women wore in the 1950s through the 1980s, or the plumbing in old buildings, or the costs of 78 r.p.m. records, or the books that were popular at the...