Books Set in North America, Baton Rouge, Louisiana

My Sunshine Away, by M.O. Walsh (2015)

My Sunshine Away is a coming-of-age novel that is set in Baton Rouge, Louisiana.  The title is a reference to the song You Are My Sunshine, the state song of Louisiana that was written by Jimmie Davis, the 47th Governor of Louisiana.  

As a resident of Baton Rouge, I can attest to the fact that the author perfectly captures the heat and flavor of the city.  He also captures the difference between Baton Rouge and its better known Louisiana city of New Orleans.

The novel opens up in the care-free summer of 1989 before there were cell phones.  We also know in the first chapter that fifteen-year-old Lindy Simpson was brutally raped.  Twenty-plus years later, the narrator looks back at this summer when he was just a thirteen-year-old boy.  He was just a naive child, who didn't fully understand the meaning of rape.  He had an enormous crush on Lindy.  At the time, there were four suspects to the crime, including the narrator because he had pictures and drawings of Lindy.

The narrator describes his neighborhood and its neighbors.  He perfectly describes his impressions of the events and the people around him.  In the years following the summer, he is awakening to his own sexuality and continuing his obsession with Lindy.

This book as beautifully written.

4 Stars

Read:  June 22, 2026

Books Set in North America, New Orleans, Louisiana and New York

Returning: A Search for Home Across Three Centuries, by Nicholas Lemann (2026)

Read:  April 24, 2026

4 Stars

Books Set in North America, Carville, Louisiana United States

The Second Life of Miriella West, by Amanda Skenandore (2021)

Read: March 22, 2025

3 Stars

Books Set in North America; Louisiana United States

First Lie Wins, by Ashley Elston (2024)

This suspense thriller is narrated by a con woman calling herself Evie Porter who works for a mysterious man known only as “Mr. Smith.”  She is sent out around the South to find dirt on others.  The novel opens when she moves in with her latest mark, Ryan Sumner, who lives in a fictious small town in Southern Louisiana near the Texas border.

Although initially Evie was supposed to investigate Ryan’s mysterious side business, she soon finds herself falling in love with him.  One day Evie meets a woman calling herself Lucca Marino, which is Evie actual name.  Lucca is impersonating Evie and providing all the details of Evie’s actual life.  Soon after their meeting, the fake Lucca is killed in a car accident.

The plot goes back and forth in time as the layers of Evie’s life are slowly peeled back.  We learn of other jobs Evie has done for Mr. Smith and how these jobs impacted her life.  Evie realizes that some of the jobs she is assigned are actual jobs, but others are test of her loyalty to Mr. Smith.

When Evie is accused of murder and an arrest warrant is issued, she realized that Mr. Smith is testing her, possibly for a final time.  She must trust her instincts to take steps to protect herself, all the while considering who she can trust.

I have been reading some rather heavy books over the past few months.  This was just the ticket for a light and fast read.  Plus, the references to and about Louisiana were fun.  The suspense was sufficient to keep my attention.  A fun book.

Read: May 11, 2024

4 Stars

Books Set in North America, Baton Rouge and Breaux Bridge, Louisiana

A Flicker in the Dark, by Stacy Willingham (2022)

A Flicker in the Dark is a thriller narrated by Chloe Davis, a psychologist from the small bayou town of Breaux Bridge, but now living and working in Baton Rouge.  When she was a young girl, her life was shattered when her father, Dick Davis, convicted of the murder of several teenaged girls.  Chloe was the one who turned her father into the police, an act that follows her where ever she goes.

Now as the twentieth anniversary of her father’s conviction and incarceration, more teenaged girls go missing.  Chloe is haunted by memories of the past with the news of more missing girls.  She is further troubled when Aaron Jansen, a reporter for the New York Times, approaches her for an interview for an anniversary story about the original murders.

Due to her past, Chloe has had a hard maintaining long-term relationships, so when she meets Daniel Briggs, he seems to be her savior.  She withholds telling him the full story of her childhood and her infamous father, however.  Daniel’s sister also vanished twenty years earlier and Chloe wonders if there may be a link to the earlier murders.

I picked up this book solely because it takes place in Baton Rouge and Breaux Bridge, Louisiana.  The author description of the bayous and marshes of Louisiana in a way that the reader feels the humidity and moss covered trees.  It was a very quick read and was filled with twists and turns.

Read:  January 25, 2024

4.5 Stars

Books Set in North America; North America; New Orleans, Louisiana

The Things We Lost to Water, by Eric Nguyen (2021)

The Things We Lost to Water is a wonderful novel about a Vietnamese family that immigrated to the United States from Vietnam after the war.  The novel begins in 1978 when pregnant Hương and her young son, Tuấn, run towards a boat to escape from Vietnam.  Hương was grasping her husband’s hand, but in the crush of people, they were separated and he stayed behind.  Hương gave birth to her second son, Bình, in a refuge camp.

Ultimately, the family finds itself in Louisiana and settle in New Orleans East.  Hương writes and continues to try to communicate with her husband Công, begging him to leave Vietnam and come to New Orleans.  Most of her letters are returned to her, however, she eventually received a postcard from him telling her not to contact him anymore.  She tells her sons that their father died in Vietnam.  His absence in the family is actually a presence in the family.  His “ghost” hovers over his sons.

The author captures New Orleans East with its shotgun houses, slummy apartment buildings and bayou filled with garbage.  As a young teen, Tuấn rebelled against his mother’s overprotection and joined a Vietnamese gang.  Although he was very young when he left Vietnam, he had some memories, hence ties, to his country of birth.  Bình, however, never lived in Vietnam, and felt American, so insisted that he be called Ben.  Ben is studious and after he landed a job with a literature professor, was able to obtain a scholarship to attend college.

Although she never stopped loving Công, Hương met and began dating Vinh, a fellow refugee with no apparent ability to hold a job.  He moves in with the family and tries to assume a surrogate father to Hương’s son.  Years later, Hương learns that Công died.  She and Tuấn return to Vietnam for his burial service.  They find that the country has vastly changed in the years since they were gone.

The novel takes the reader from the family running through water in Vietnam to facing the flooding following Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans.  Water is a thread throughout this novel.  The Vietnamese word Nước means both country and water, thus the book’s title is a bit of a pun.  This novel captures the flavor of the New Orleans immigrant experience.

Read:  October 28, 2021

5 Stars

Books Set in the United States: Louisiana

The Book of Lost Friends, by Lisa Wingate (2020)

The Book of Lost Friends follows two stories:  One story takes place in the 1870 in post-Civil War Louisiana, and is told from the voice of young Hannie, a recently freed slave from the Gossett Plantation.  The other story takes place nearly 100 years later, in 1987, and is told in the voice of a first-year English teacher who finds herself in South Louisiana and living in a house on the former Gossett Plantation.

After the Civil War ended, many of the freed slaved stayed on the Plantations working as share-croppers hoping to earn enough money to acquire some land.  That was Hannie’s position in 1875.  She had a strong memory, however, of having been separated from her mother as a young girl.  She had dreams of reuniting with her family.  Before the Civil War, Gossett Plantation had been a thriving and wealthy place.  The owner, William Gossett, kept his (white) family on the plantation, but kept a secret Creole mistress in New Orleans, with whom he had a free-born daughter, Juneau Jane.  William Gossett favored Juneau Jane, and she was highly educated.  His white children were spoiled and self-centered.

After the Civil War, William Gossett left the family in search of his wayward son.  His daughter, Lavinia, got it into her head to seek her father, and dragged Juneau Jane along with her.  Juneau Jane had her own reason for seeking out William Gossett.  She wanted to be sure that she would receive her promised inheritance.  Hannie disguised herself as their male driver and the three of them took off for Texas.  Along their journey, they discover the list of Lost Friends, where former slaves would have their story seeking their family members published in a newspaper.  The stories would be read and posted in black churches throughout the South.

Jump to 1987.  Benedetta “Benny” Silva found herself in the small rural town of (fictional) Augustine, Louisiana to teach English.  She was running from her own past.  Augustine was the home of the Gossett Plantation.  The Gossetts still hold sway in the town.  They own a major industry in the area and have a lot of political influence.  They send their children to the school across the lake.  Most of the students in Benny’s class were impoverished black students.  They were disinterested in learning until Benny got them interested in researching the town’s history.

Every other chapter was in the voice of either Hennie or Benny.  I found Hennie’s story to be a bit too disjointed.  Her chapter would end in a cliff-hanger, but then, when the her story picked up again, the author would have moved on.

I moved to south Louisiana in 1987.  Later in my career, I did a lot of real estate title work, and researched the lands that were former plantations.  Her depiction of the town of Augustine rang true.  Her brief description of the town’s plans for the unmarked cemetery, however, would not have been permitted under Louisiana law.

As I read the novel, I thought I knew where the author was leading us with respect to Benny.  I did not, however, see the ending as it was written.

The author of this book also wrote the historical novel, Before We Were Yours, which I also read.

Read:  July 15, 2020

4 Stars

Books Set in North America: Caribbean and Louisiana

Island Beneath the Sea, by Isabel Allende (2010)

Island Beneath the Sea, by Isabel Allende, is a historical novel that takes place on the Caribbean island of Saint-Domingue (current day Haiti) and New Orleans from the late 1700s, through the French Revolution slave rebellion of Saint-Domingue of 1804, and the Louisiana Purchase.  The novel follows a young slave girl, Zarité, known as Tété.  The novel is mostly told in third person, but some chapters are narrated by Zarité.

In the 1700s, wealthy French plantation owners ran and operated sugar plantations on Saint-Domingue.  Young Toulouse Valmorain left France to travel to Saint-Domingue to assist his father with the family’s plantation.  He intended to stay only a few weeks, but when he arrived, he found his father dying and the sugar plantation in deplorable conditions.  He soon found himself inheriting the sugar plantation, complete with hundreds of slaves.  When he married, he purchased Tété for his spoiled, Spanish/Cuban bride.

Compared to his neighboring plantation owners, Valmorain was relatively kind, however, he allowed his ruthless overseer handle discipline.  When his wife became ill, Tété tended to her.  Valmorain found the young Tété attractive, and soon called her to his bed.  As a slave, Tété had no alternative but to obey his call, even though she was just a child when he first began his sexual relationshio (rape) with her.  She bore him two children, the first of which was quickly whisked away from her, while the second, was raised in the plantation home along with Valmorain’s legitimate son.

The novel described the beginning of the slave revolt, which was led by the historical figure of Toussaint Louverture.  When Tété learned that the rebellion was approaching her master’s plantation, and that the master and his house slaves would be slaughter, she convincee Valmorain to pack up his family and leave the plantation in the middle of the night.  Eventually, they arrived in Louisiana, where Valmorain, through his brother-in-law, had purchased property and made contacts.

Valmorain had promised to free Tété and her daughter, and had given her a written document to that effect, however, he also convinced her that her freedom would not become effective until she turned 30 years old.

The novel vividly describes life in New Orleans under Spanish rule in the late 1700s before it came under French, then American governance.

I thoroughly enjoyed this book with its glimpse into this historical period.

Read:  January 21, 2020

5 Stars

Books Set in North America: United States: New Orleans, Louisiana

The Yellow House, by Sarah M. Broom (2019)

The Yellow House is a memoir of New Orleans as seen through eyes of a large, loving family that grew up in New Orleans East.  In 1961, Ivory Webb, a 19-year-old widow with two young children, purchased a house for just over $3,000, on Wilson Avenue in New Orleans East.  She would live in that tiny house for the next 44 years.  Over that period, she would remarry a man named Simon Broom and the family would grow to 12 children.

Sarah Broom, the author, is the youngest child, born in the final days of 1979.  Almost exactly six months later, her father died suddenly, leaving Ivory to raise her family on her own.

While he was alive, Simon would continually attempt to make renovations and repairs on the house.  After his death, the house became another “child” to tend to.  At some point in time, yellow siding was put up on the house, hence the Yellow House that Sarah grew up on.

The first part of the book delves into the history of the development of New Orleans East and its transformation to the neighborhood it became.  By the time the author was born, the neighborhood had changed and was the forgotten district of New Orleans, surrounded by Lake Ponchartrain and the Industrial Canal.

Sarah grew in a loving home environment.  Her mother was determined to see that her children were raised to achieve.  When Sarah began hanging out with the wrong crowd in junior high school, her mother sent her to a religious private school.  Some of her brothers also attended private schools.  Money that could have been used to make repairs in the house went towards education. 

Sarah went to college in Texas.  Two of her brothers drive her to her new environment, where she is suddenly exposed to a bigger world than her comfortable New Orleans.  She eventually lands a job in New York working for O Magazine.  She was living there on that fateful day when Hurricane Katrina struck.  Most of her family, however, was still living in New Orleans East, although they had been evacuated before the levees broke.  The large family became scattered all over the United States.

New Orleans East was one of the first areas of the city to be inundated by water from Katrina.  The Yellow House was severely damaged as water literally covered the house.  The house, however, did not collapse, nor was it displaced to another location, as so many other houses in New Orleans East and the 9th Ward were.

The Federal Government established a Road Home Program, designed to assist Louisiana residents who had been affected by Katrina (and Hurricane Rita, which occurred a month after Katrina).  The Program was to assist homeowners with funds to rebuild their homes.  The Program, however, was fraught with problems.  In addition, city officials, hoping to rid the City of blight, determined that it would demolish homes unless the owners indicated otherwise.  Notices of the demolitions were mailed to the address of the homes that were to be razed.  Thus, 2 years passed and the Broom family was still living outside of New Orleans when the Notice of Demolition was mailed to the Yellow House.  The family was unaware of the notice, and the house ~ the bloodline of Ivory ~ was torn down.  There was little recourse to the family.

After traveling the globe in search of jobs to avoid the trauma of Katrina, the author eventually returns to New Orleans, this time living in the French Quarter, to try to find closure.

I am not generally a fan of memoirs, however, I found this to be fascinating.  I lived (and still live) in South Louisiana during Hurricane Katrina.  I was intimately familiar with the rebuilding of public spaces in the City.  Thus, I was intrigued by the author’s perspective.  She has a beautiful way of describing her surroundings.  I could almost see and feel the city through the pages.

A few photographs were included in the book.  I would liked to have seen more.  Also, a map of the City would be helpful for readers unfamiliar with New Orleans.

Read:  January 6, 2010

5 Stars

Books Set in North America: United States

Public Enemies: America’s Greatest Crime Wave and the Birth of the FBI, 1933 ~ 1934, by Bryan Burrough (2004)

In the late 1980s, the files on the activities of the early years of the FBI were released.  The author, while watching a documentary on the Barker Gang, became intrigued by the first spate of criminals deemed Public Enemies.  This book is the result of his interest.  He poured over FBI files and wrote this comprehensive look at the FBI’s pursuit of four groupings of criminal gangs that were active in the early 1930s ~ Machine Gun Kelly, Bonnie and Clyde, John Dillinger and the Barker Gang.

Although the FBI had been in existence since 1908 (as the Bureau of Investigation), in the early years, the agents were forbidden to carry weapons.  The philosophy was that they were an investigative branch ~ the arrests were to be accomplished by the local jurisdictions.

This changed in the 1930s.  The Great Depression brought with it a new kind of criminal ~ bank robbers.  It was the deadly Kansas City massacre of a number of law men that changed the face of the FBI.  In June 1933, a criminal gang led by Vernon Miller set out to free fellow criminal, Frank Nash, who was in Federal custody and was being transported in Missouri.  Miller’s gang ambushed and opened fire on law officers, killing four.  Nash was killed in the ensuing gunfire.  This massacre got the attention of the J. Edgar Hoover. It has been speculated that Pretty Boy Floyd was involved in the massacre, but this has not definitively been proven.

The FBI had few trained agents, and none with any really experience with weapons and very limited jurisdiction.  At the time, robbing banks was not under the jurisdiction of the Feds.  The FBI had to work with local law enforcement officers, some of which were also ill-equip to handle major crimes, or were not willing to work with the federal officers.

This book shows the growing pains of the early years of the FBI.  Homer Cummings, the United States Attorney General, had to convince Congress to expand the power and authority of the FBI.  Soon after the Kansas City massacre, the FBI was training its agents to use weapons.  Some of their interrogation procedures, however, left much to be desired.

The book delves into the activities of Machine Gun Kelly, John Dillinger, Bonnie and Clyde, and the Barker Gang.

Dillinger came from a middle-class background.  He was good looking and was known to jump over bank railings when he robbed banks.  He was exceedingly polite.  He captured the public’s attention and was seen as a Robin-Hood figure in robbing banks. It was not his aim to hurt anyone during his crime sprees.  When he was ultimately betrayed and killed outside the Biograph Theater in Chicago, he had achieved near national folk hero status.

During this same period of history, Bonnie and Clyde were ruthlessly crossing the country, leaving a bloody path in their wake.  During their lifetime, they were largely unknown, except for the locales of their robbing and killing.  The FBI sought the couple, but bungled their investigative efforts.  In the end, it was a posse of local law officers who ambushed the two criminals.

The author also followed the exploits of the Barker Gang.  Although Hoover publicized that the “brains” behind the Barker Gang was the criminal’s mother, Kate “Ma” Barker, the FBI files showed that she was actually more concerned with jigsaw puzzles and had little before-the-fact knowledge of the gang’s criminal activity.

The FBI had a tip that Dillinger and his gang were holed up in an inn called Little Bohemia in northern Wisconsin.  The FBI agents, still without expertize in weaponry, badly misjudged the situation. In the dark of night, in a raid lead by Melvin Purvis, came upon the inn.  The FBI, mistaking local patrons leaving the inn for the Dillinger gang, began a shootout, killing the innocent patrons.  One federal agent was also killed, but Dillinger slipped through their fingers.

Baby Face Nelson was one of the most brutal criminals during this era.  He seemed to delight in terrorizing and killing victims during his robberies.  Agents trailed him all across the country before he was finally killed in another shoot-out in Illinois.

By the end of the 1934, the FBI had gained its footing and overcome the fumbles of its earlier year and was well on its way to the power and prestige is has today.

A fascinating and very readable book.

Read: August 2, 2019

5 Stars

Books Set in North America: American South and Canada

The Saints of Lost Things, by C.H. Lawler (2014)

This novel begins as Hurricane Betsy is about to hit the Louisiana coast in 1965.  Sammy Teague, the wealthy young son of a Louisiana planter, was about to leave the plantation and head back to college at Ole Miss in Oxford, Mississippi. Instead, he is the sole member of his family left at home to keep an eye on the plantation.

Betsy Duplechain lives across the field in the plantation’s tenement house where she lives with her mother and grandmother. She, too, is left alone in the house to sit out the storm.  Although Betsy and Sammy have lived on the same plantation all their lives, until the hurricane, their lives never intersected.

After the first wave of the storm hits, Sammy sees Betsy struggling at her home.  The storm has caused damage to the little hut.  Sammy invites Betsy to wait out the storm with him in the main house.  They are immediately attracted to each other and become inseperable.  After the storm, when their families return to the plantation, Sammy and Betsy’s lives are changed forever.

When Sammy’s family learns of his attraction to Betsy, he is cut-off financially.  He can no longer afford his college life-style.  Because he is no longer a college student, he no longer has the draft deferment.  He can either enlist or head to Canada.

When Betsy’s mother learns she is pregnant, Betsy is disowned and kicked out of the house.  She, thinking that Sammy is in college in Oxford, heads there to find him.

In the meantime, the Deputy Sheriff of the fictional St. Matthew’s Parish, Louisiana, feels that the Teague family had stolen his family’s land.  He decides Hurricane Betsy provides him with the best opportunity to get his land back if only he can get to Sammy.  This is where the story goes off the rails.  The deputy is depicted as a stereotypical corrupt and cruel country law enforcement officer.  He schemes to follow Sammy and Betsy through their travels.

Eventually, Betsy and Sammy find each other.  They decide to head towards Canada.  On the way, they stop in Arkansas, where they are married by a kindly and psychic priest.  The priest warns that that the sheriff is following them and assists in providing a way to their destination.

Much of the story didn’t make logical sense. It was an interesting read, but not one that will remain with me.

Read: April 26, 2019

3 Stars 

Books Set in the United States: Louisiana

Bayou, My Love, by Lauren Faulkenberry (2016)

It took me forever to read this book.  I started, then stopped and it was a while before I picked it up again.

From the title, you can tell that it takes place in Louisiana.  That was the hook that got me.

Enza Parker and her father have a successful real estate business flipping houses in North Carolina.  When her Louisiana grandmother dies, leaving her the house, Enza travels deep into the bayou of Louisiana to see the house.  She intends to fix it up and sell it.  He father has given her a budget and time frame within which he intends for her to flip the house.

When Enza sees the house, it brings back memories of summers she used to spend with her grandmother.  She is surprised, however, to find Jack Mayronne living in her house.  Jack, it seems, has been living rent-free in the grandmother’s home (grandma knew about this arrangement).  Enza intends to kick him out, but he convinces her to let him continue to stay.  In exchange, he agreed to help fix up the house.

At this point the Louisiana stereotypes kick in.  There is Miranda, Jack’s old girlfriend, who still pines for Jack.  There is Remy, who is just plain mean.  And don’t forget Duchess the voodoo queen.

Jack is a firefighter.  Fires mysteriously appear in the area, including some in Enza’s home as she tries to repair it for sale.  Is it voodoo?  Is it jealousy?  Who cares?

The book started off okay, but I got tired depiction of the life in the bayou.  There is a prequel to this novel, which provides some background into Enza’s psyche, and another book that continues with Enza’s saga.  I think I’ll pass on reading those.

Read: April 26, 2017

2 Stars

Books Set in the United States: New Orleans, Louisiana

Madam: A Novel of New Orleans, by Cari Lynn and Kellie Martin (2014)

This novel takes place just before the turn of last century with the creation of Storyville in New Orleans.  The characters in this novel are real, although some liberties were taken with the timeline of the events.

The novel follows the life of Mary Deubler, a young prostitute working in a rough area of the city called Venus Alley.  She was forced to follow her mother's footsteps into prostitution to support her young brother and his even younger wife.

Sidney Story, a puritanical alderman in the city was the author of an ordinance that created district of the city to be set aside for "vices of the flesh."  This area became known as Storyville, and was where the prostitutes and their johns would not be arrested.

Mary meets up with certain people and transformed herself into the notorious Madam Josie Arlington.  Along the telling of this story we meet other historical figures such as Jelly Roll Morton and the famous Storyville photographer, E.J. Bellocq.

The novel focused primarily on Mary's life before she became the infamous Madam Arlington.

I enjoyed this historical view of New Orleans.

Read:  August 21, 2016

Books Set in the United States: Louisiana

Familiar Evil, by Rannah Gray (2015)

Read: April 20, 2016

2 Stars

Books Set in the United States: Louisiana

The Cottoncrest Curse, by Michael H. Rubin (2014)

This book is billed as a legal thriller, but merely perpetuates stereotypes of blacks, Jews and red-neck Southerners.  It starts with a bloody murder of the Judge and his young wife, who are the owners of Cottoncrest, a still thriving plantation following the American Civil War.  It appears to be a murder suicide, but the local sheriff suspects otherwise.  Throughout the book, the author tosses out legal terms that are unique to Louisiana.  I never cared about any of the characters.

0 Stars

Read:  September 28, 2014

Books Set in the United States: Louisiana

The Lost German Slave Girl, by John Bailey.  (2003)


Read: September 6, 2013

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

Books Set In The United States: New Orleans

Nine Lives by Dan Baum (2009)

Nine Lives, as the title implies, follows the lives of nine New Orleanians who lived through Hurricane Katrina. The Katrina episode, however, does not begin until the end of the book. Instead, Nine Lives attempts to explain the attraction and pull the city of New Orleans has on its residents and why the people of New Orleans are so adamant about remaining in the city after the flooding following the levee breaches in 2005.

The book’s title is also a pun on the phrase “Nine Lives.” The individuals highlighted in the book have suffered tragedy after tragedy, and yet still survive. Hurricane Katrina is another major setback, yet they persevere.

Dan Baum met with, and interviewed, the nine individuals extensively for days on end. He also interviewed others who, either knew the Nine lives spotlighted, or who could provide background information about their segment of society in New Orleans. The Nine highlighted in the book did not necessarily know each other, although some of their lives did intersect.

The nine lives of the book represent a good cross-section of the New Orleans residents. The individuals include residents of the Lower Ninth Ward, politicos, a self-made man who rose to become King of Rex, a transsexual, a police office, and are both black and white. Having lived through Katrina and its recovery attempt (which 5 years later is still ongoing), I understand the characters. I wonder, though, how this book translates to the “other America” ~ those who are not so intimately involved in the Katrina experience.

New Orleans reveled in its “bad boy” reputation as a corrupt and crime-ridden city. It was an open secret that the police department of the city was on the take, and that the schools were some of the worst in the country. New Orleans didn’t try to retain business, and when the oil bubble in the 1980s burst and many of the oil companies pulled up stakes, many of the old and monied residents, found themselves barely hanging on. They kept up appearances, however, to keep their social status. Music and Mardi Gras define New Olreans. New Orleans without Mardi Gras is unimaginable. Mardi Gras and music must go on despite any other tragedy.

The book begins with the teenaged Reginald Lewis in 1965 in the aftermath of Hurricane Betsy. That storm caused considerable damage to the Lower Ninth Ward, but the residents of that neighborhood rebuilt their community and remained. Over the next 40 years, that neighborhood slowly became more violent and isolated from other parts of the city. Lewis becomes a streetcar track repairman for years. It is tough, physical work, but he works himself up through the ranks as far as he can as a black man living in the city that fought integration. In the early 1990s, Lewis was instrumental in starting a second-line club of musicians to march in their neighborhood Mardi Gras parades. This lead to his collecting a wide assortment of elaborate Mardi Gras costumes, which became so vast, that he eventually established a Museum of Dance and Feathers.

Joyce Montana is the wife of the Tootie Montana. For years, Black men costumed themselves as Mardi Gras Indians during the Mardi Gras festivals. As Indians, they used to fight and brawl until Tootie Montana came along. Tootie was famous for sewing elaborate beaded and feathered suits. He would spend a year and much money in designing and creating costumes for the festivities. Tootie died two months before Katrina hit. His wife was left to struggle on her own.

Billy Grace is a self-made man who came from a humble background, but married into an old family who owned the famous “Rex House.” The year before Katrina, Grace was captain of the prestigious Rex krewe. When the storm hit, Grace was out of town on business, but his in-laws remained in their Garden District mansion. The house was on high ground, so survived the storm, only to be burned to the ground in the post-Katrina era.

As a young gynecologist, Frank Minyard was a wild man. Although he had married well, he was a womanizer. His wife overlooked this for the status of being a doctor’s wife. Minyard’s epiphany in the 1960s following a depressive crisis pushed him into establishing a methadone program in the city’s jails. His interaction with Black’s horrified his wife, who left him. This ultimately lead him to running for Parish Coroner, a job that he held for the next 40 years. It was Minyard’s office that was responsible for identifying bodies and signing death certificates for the victims of Katrina. He objected to using the word “drowning” or “natural causes” on the death certificates for people who had actually died from heat exhaustion, dehydration, stress, neglect and “political” causes.

Belinda Carr and Wilbert Rawlings are both residents of the Lower Ninth Ward. Both want better lives for themselves and their families. Both are caught in the circumstances of their surroundings. Belinda becomes a teenaged mother, but still dreams of going to college. Wilbert finds himself as a band leader at some of the roughest publics schools, attempting to change the lives of students who are forced to raise themselves amidst non-existent parents. Both have difficulty staying in relationships.

Tim Bruneau is a young idealistic police officer, who was severely injured while chasing a teenage perp. In the hours after Katrina, before the levees broke, he comes across the body of a young black woman. Unable to comprehend why the morgue hasn’t arrived, he tells his superior that he will transport the body to the morgue himself. He wraps the body and places it in back of his car, which he takes to the morgue at University Hospital. The doctor there informs him that he will not accept the body because it is the city’s “trash.” Bruneau drives around with the body in the backseat of his vehicle until he is told to “undo what he did”, and he is forced to drop off the body back to the street.

John/JoAnn Guidos is the transsexual who, after attempting to live as a man, finally realizes that he is really a woman in a man’s body. He also realizes that he can experience his dream only in New Orleans. He opens Kajun’s, a neighborhood bar shortly before Katrina. During the storm, it becomes a haven for those who chose to stay in the city.

Anthony Wells was the most troublesome character. His story is told in first person. He was in and out of jail and, in the post-Katrina evacuation was forcibly transported to Knoxville, Tennessee. He believes that the people of Tennessee “owe” him.

Katrina is still with the citizens of New Orleans. Baum describes why New Orleans is essential to the people living their and why they remain. It is well written and the reader becomes connected with the nine who chose to share their experience to the rest of the country.

Read: April 10, 2010