Books Set In the United States: Louisiana

The Scandalous Summer of Sissy LeBlanc, by Loraine Depres (2001)

I read this book in August 2010, but somehow its review didn't make it to the list on time.

The Scandalous Summer of Sissy LeBlanc reinforces southern stereotypes. The story begins in the mid-1950s in the fictitious town of Gentry, Louisiana. Sissy LeBlanc is a bored housewife and mother of three children. Her husband, whom she married straight out of high school, is emotionally and sexually distant. The family is struggling to survive.

Suddenly one summer’s day, Sissy’s high school boyfriend, Parker Davidson, appears back in town. For the past 14 years, Davidson has been traveling about the world. He apparently made a fortune only to have it taken from him by a dishonest business partner. He returns to Gentry with no money and takes a job as a lineman for the company. Soon Sissy and Parker are an item again. Although her husband, PeeWee is a cockhold, her young children are aware of the budding relationship between their mother and the handsome stranger, who is gratuitously Jewish, so that the townsfolks can call him anti-Semitic names. (Some of which were new terms to me.)

Sissy lives in the shadow of her older brother’s death who died in 1941, at a time when Sissy was a young teenager and very vulnerable. Her brother’s death was followed by her mother’s illness and subsequence death. The emotional upheaval lead Sissy into the arms of Bourrée LeBlanc, the evil and cruel man who would become her father-in-law. Although Sissy is initially infatuated with Bourrée, after he uses her, he tosses her away. Then one night, he rapes her. She when she becomes pregnant and turns to Bourrée, he brings her a woman for a back-alley abortion. Realizing that this could kill her, she runs away and convinces PeeWee, Bourrée’s son to marry her. He believes that he is the father of Sissy’s oldest son.

Meanwhile, the powerful white men in town are secretly carrying on with their black mistresses. The illegitimate daughter of Sissy’s uncle and his black mistress is a young woman who looks just like Sissy. When Parker Davidson can’t have Sissy, he sleeps with the next best thing ~ Sissy’s black cousin.

Things finally come to a head when PeeWee realizes that his wife has not been faithful. Oh yes, and since this is a southern town, there is the obligatory gun. Someone is going to be killed.

The Scandalous Summer of Sissy LeBlanc is the first in a trilogy by Loraine Despres. I think I’ll skip the other two books in the series.


Read: August 21, 2010