A memoir of a marriage deeply rooted in love, faith, and literary art, featuring excerpts from Pulitzer Prize winner Oscar Hijuelos’ final, unpublished novel, Blue Antiquity
In A Writing Marriage (Regalo Press; hardcover, May 12, 2026, $30.00), Lori Carlson-Hijuelos reflects on the wonder of her union with Oscar, her soulmate. To write their love story, Lori chose a sacred place: the library of a nineteenth-century cathedral in her upstate New York hometown. True to their partnership in life, she created a work of collaboration, with Oscar’s voice, views, and presence shining through in excerpts from his unpublished fiction opus, Blue Antiquity, which he was working on at the time of his death. A unique blend of memoir and fiction, A Writing Marriage illuminates Lori’s life with Oscar, whom she met in 1981, nearly a decade before he became the first Latino author to win the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction, and who she wed in December 1998. In an interview, she can talk about: The power of writing to create and remake worlds and reveal the writer - while reading her husband’s final, unpublished novel, Lori was struck by how the protagonist—an academic with a passion for archaeology and the son of Cuban immigrants—mirrors Oscar. In excerpts from Blue Antiquity, she captures Oscar’s zest for life, fascination with ancient civilizations, and spiritual development.The hallmarks of a foundational marriage, the kind devoted to serving, nourishing, and empowering each other, and why cositas, the “little things” that mark the way spouses treat each other, matter—whether it’s celebrating birthdays or holding hands.How writing has helped her as she deals with the profound grief and reality of widowhood - As Lori reflects, the word most used to explain what should happen to someone after the death of a spouse is healing. She prefers the verb reconstructing. “Reconstruction is what I am encountering.”
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