When Raul fell ill in his elderly forties, his 'empress', who had had maids of her own as a girl, found herself cleaning the apartments of rich New Yorkers. Thus began Lydia's long lesson in humility, but it also provided daily glimpses of life's more elaborate comforts. Amongst her employers - one a psychologist who had worked for Freud in Vienna as a young woman, one a spooky disciple of Aleister Crowley's who gave Lydia bad dreams - there was also one paragon of glamour, money, cleanliness and good manners and that was Mr Osprey. The Ospreys had all that Lydia aspired to for her children, who got mightily tired of hearing about it, though Mr Osprey was indeed to play a big part in the lives of them all. Oscar Hijuelos is a master of the eloquent detail, his characters open up like flowers on the page, alive and vibrant. Lydia Espana is unforgettable- a sensuous woman who meets the trials of life with a gleam in her eye, with a sense of being someone special - which she undoubtedly is.