Rating: 
Summary: Not for everyone.
Review: "Mr. Ives Christmas" is about a faithful man whose teenage son is cruelly murdered at Christmastime. It's a stunning story about religious faith. Hijuelos takes things of the spirit very seriously, and sacred events indeed occur in the novel. It climaxes with a series of epiphanies, in the very literal sense of that word. Hijuelos makes frequent fitting reference to Dickens and "A Christmas Carol" because his story is about the tragedies of life, but also the grace of God that is available to "those that are good." I finished this novel at 3 a.m., in tears. I can't recommend it highly enough.
Rating: 
Summary: Remarkably Beautiful
Review: "Mr. Ives Christmas" is about a faithful man whose teenage son is cruelly murdered at Christmastime. It's a stunning story about religious faith. Hijuelos takes things of the spirit very seriously, and sacred events indeed occur in the novel. It climaxes with a series of epiphanies, in the very literal sense of that word. Hijuelos makes frequent fitting reference to Dickens and "A Christmas Carol" because his story is about the tragedies of life, but also the grace of God that is available to "those that are good." I finished this novel at 3 a.m., in tears. I can't recommend it highly enough.
Rating:
Summary: Hijuelos' Poetic Tale of Redemption
Review: Oscar Hijuelos' Mr. Ives' Christmas tells the tale of a
gentle, saintly man's 30-year search to re-find his god after his son is killed one Christmas Eve by a teenage thug.
Hijuelos -- the author of Mambo Kings Play Songs of Love -- tells the tale of a sensitive, caring man who, abandoned
by his probably Hispanic parents as a toddler, finds his way to a position of prominence as an illustrator with a New York advertising agency. Although raised by a white widower, Mr. Ives never forgets his roots and finds his friends and home as an adult in a New York neighborhood that is mostly lower-middle class and Hispanic. As an adult, he is devoted to the church and to the surrounding Hispanic community until his 17-year-old son -- who plans to enter the seminary -- is killed in front of his church after choir practice one Christmas eve in the 1960's. His killer is a Puerto Rican teenager.
Hijuelos' prose is poetry and music. You feel Mr. Ives' pain and sense of loss. You see and feel its effects on the
people who surround him -- his friends, his family, his
priests. Along the way, in his 30-year search, Ives also
loses, then recovers the love and joy he feels for his wife and daughter.
Hijuelos turns an improbably melodramatic premise into a warm, romantic tale of a community's love for its troubled saint and its struggle to help him find his way to a reunion
with his god. Most assuredly not just a Christmas tale, Mr. Ives' Christmas is a story for those nights when you turn from the
evening news feeling tortured, hoping (or praying) that the
world will find the strength to right itself.
Stuart Gordon
Rating: 
Summary: Beautiful and evocative prose
Review: Although I am temperamentally drawn to tales of this kind, there were times when I felt that the characters were a bit manipulated: Ives too good, too silent, Ramirez a bit of a 'latino' stock character. However, the narrative style - a series of little vignettes - had the quality of memory; people really do remember their lives through a succession of episodes. The novel has a strong physical quality: it evoked New York in the 50s and 60s so well... and some of the characters, such as Ives' wife, are so delicately and complete drawn, that they seem to breathe. I loved reading this book, even if the story left me rather unconvinced.
Rating:
Summary: Faith exemplified!
Review: Another wonderful Oscar Hijuelos novel-- so different than "Mambo Kings" yet so powerful. Hijuelos has done what thousands of sermonizers and preachers could never do. He has exemplified faith through the story of a real man in a real world with real problems. Edward Ives is not perfect and his struggle to find God is not dramatic - it takes his entire lifetime, but a simple faith sustains him. I'm not Catholic, but this story demonstrates how the church and those that are a part of it can be God's instrument in an imperfect world -- just the opposite of the tremendous beating the church has taken recently. "Mr. Ives' Christmas" is a beautiful story, the people are real, and the theme is profound. The author has made a powerful statement in a calm & quiet manner.
Rating:
Summary: Faith exemplified!
Review: Another wonderful Oscar Hijuelos novel-- so different than "Mambo Kings" yet so powerful. Hijuelos has done what thousands of sermonizers and preachers could never do. He has exemplified faith through the story of a real man in a real world with real problems. Edward Ives is not perfect and his struggle to find God is not dramatic - it takes his entire lifetime, but a simple faith sustains him. I'm not Catholic, but this story demonstrates how the church and those that are a part of it can be God's instrument in an imperfect world -- just the opposite of the tremendous beating the church has taken recently. "Mr. Ives' Christmas" is a beautiful story, the people are real, and the theme is profound. The author has made a powerful statement in a calm & quiet manner.
Rating:
Summary: Faith exemplified!
Review: Another wonderful Oscar Hijuelos novel-- so different than "Mambo Kings" yet so powerful. Hijuelos has done what thousands of sermonizers and preachers could never do. He has exemplified faith through the story of a real man in a real world with real problems. Edward Ives is not perfect and his struggle to find God is not dramatic - it takes his entire lifetime, but a simple faith sustains him. I'm not Catholic, but this story demonstrates how the church and those that are a part of it can be God's instrument in an imperfect world -- just the opposite of the tremendous beating the church has taken recently. "Mr. Ives' Christmas" is a beautiful story, the people are real, and the theme is profound. The author has made a powerful statement in a calm & quiet manner.
Rating:
Summary: Is there a fundamental goodness inherent in this world?
Review: Ed Ives is of an unknown origin. His search for an identity and an understanding of life beyond his present situation prompts him to explore the world. While he does not find what he is looking for a series of mystical experiences provide him with what he needs. The needless murder of his son Robert shakes his life and marriage like a great and devestating earthquake. He is forced to make sense of his world in light of this travesty. It is here that the carefully woven Christmas motif of author Oscar Hijuelos emerges with its spiritual splendor. Christmas operates like an epiphany in the life of Mr. Ives. It serves as a reaffirmation of the goodness that inherently exists in this often dark world. It is a testimony to all that is of worth to a life in search of meaning. It is also the occasion of Ed's superhuman forgiveness of his son's killer. This is a marvelous book of tracing a life's movement against the current of despair. It is in the Christian world of the spiritually-minded Ed Ives that the struggle to embrace good in a world stained with evil is ultimately won.
Rating:
Summary: A Story of Christian Love
Review: I am willing to bet that, many years from now, Oscar Hijuelos will be remembered almost entirely for The Mambo Kings Play Songs of Love, his admiring tribute to 1950's mambo-crazed New York. I am not a gambler, but the critical praise and popularity of this novel tilts the odds in my favor. A less sure bet, and one that I'm more tempted to make, is that Mr. Ives' Christmas will endure as a favorite among Hijuelos fans. At least, I hope this quiet, slim, touching novel endures. At a time when the Christian right flexes its intolerance at Bob Jones University and Jerry Falwell's pulpit, this novel of Christian love and hope reminds us of those who quietly abide by these virtues. As he does with the central characters of The Mambo Kings Play Songs of Love, Hijuelos walks us through the entire life of Mr. Ives, a man who humbly lives in his apartment in New York, who marries for love, and who nurtures a joyful family. At a time when many middle-class families are flocking to the suburbs, Mr. Ives savors the diversity of his Manhattan neighborhood. When tragedy strikes, his faith enables him to forgive. Mr. Ives' Christmas is a rich novel, not simply because it enlivens Christian virtues, but because in doing so, it tackles our contemporary struggles with issues of race, class, and gender. This is not a sugar-coated tale, but a real story of Christian love in our world.
Rating:
Summary: A Story of Christian Love
Review: I am willing to bet that, many years from now, Oscar Hijuelos will be remembered almost entirely for The Mambo Kings Play Songs of Love, his admiring tribute to 1950's mambo-crazed New York. I am not a gambler, but the critical praise and popularity of this novel tilts the odds in my favor. A less sure bet, and one that I'm more tempted to make, is that Mr. Ives' Christmas will endure as a favorite among Hijuelos fans. At least, I hope this quiet, slim, touching novel endures. At a time when the Christian right flexes its intolerance at Bob Jones University and Jerry Falwell's pulpit, this novel of Christian love and hope reminds us of those who quietly abide by these virtues. As he does with the central characters of The Mambo Kings Play Songs of Love, Hijuelos walks us through the entire life of Mr. Ives, a man who humbly lives in his apartment in New York, who marries for love, and who nurtures a joyful family. At a time when many middle-class families are flocking to the suburbs, Mr. Ives savors the diversity of his Manhattan neighborhood. When tragedy strikes, his faith enables him to forgive. Mr. Ives' Christmas is a rich novel, not simply because it enlivens Christian virtues, but because in doing so, it tackles our contemporary struggles with issues of race, class, and gender. This is not a sugar-coated tale, but a real story of Christian love in our world.
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