Louisiana

Jill said, "Here's another Louisiana book -- a fantastic look at antebellum slave-holding and marriage and its effect on the people living in this immoral system. (But I bet you already know about this book!)" No, this is new to me, but it looks good. Here's Jill's review of Property by Valerie Martin."

Set in the surreal heat of the antebellum South during a slave rebellion, Property, which won the Orange Prize, takes the form of a dramatic monologue, bringing to the page a voice rarely heard in American fiction: the voice of a woman slaveholder. Manon Gaudet is pretty and petulant, self-absorbed and bored. She has come to a sugar plantation north of New Orleans as a bride, bringing with her a prized piece of property, the young slave Sarah, only to see Sarah become her husband's mistress and bear his child. As the whispers of a slave rebellion grow louder and more threatening, Manon speaks to us of her past and her present, her longings and dreams -- an uncensored, pitch-perfect voice from the heart of moral darkness.

Louisiana

Gracie said, "LA - A Confederacy of Dunces by John Kennedy Toole."

Awarded the Pulitzer Prize, A Confederacy of Dunces was not published until a decade after the death of the author. This wildly inventive and amusing novel features one of the most unforgettable characters in modern fiction: Ignatius Reilly. He's a mammoth misfit Medievalist hilariously at odds with the world of the twentieth century, and his adventures take him to way down, to New Orleans' lower depths.

The publisher claims this book "outswifts Swift, one of whose essays gives the book its title. As its characters burst into life, they leave the region and literature forever changed by their presences - Ignatius and his mother; Miss Trixie, the octogenarian assistant accountant at Levy Pants; inept, wan Patrolman Mancuso; Darlene, the Bourbon Street stripper with a penchant for poultry; Jones, the jivecat in space-age dark glasses."

Louisiana

NOLADawn said, "Ok, some more Southern Lit here... Another LA book- A Lesson Before Dying- by Ernest J. Gaines"

A Lesson Before Dying is a novel about a young man who returns to 1940s Cajun country and teaches a black youth, who is on death row for a crime he didn't commit. In the end, the two men forge a bond as they both come to understand the simple heroism of resisting -- and defying -- the expected. This book was the winner of the National Book Critics Circle Award for Fiction. Library Journal said in its review:

What do you tell an innocent youth who was at the wrong place at the wrong time and now faces death in the electric chair? What do you say to restore his self-esteem when his lawyer has publicly described him as a dumb animal? What do you tell a youth humiliated by a lifetime of racism so that he can face death with dignity? The task belongs to Grant Wiggins, the teacher of the Negro plantation school who narrates the story. Grant grew up on the Louisiana plantation but broke away to go to the university. He returns to help his people but struggles over "whether I should act like the teacher that I was, or like the nigger that I was supposed to be." The powerful message Grant tells the youth transforms him from a "hog" to a hero, and the reader is not likely to forget it, either.

The novel by Gaines that I (Bonnie) cannot forget is A Gathering of Old Men. Set on a Louisiana sugarcane plantation in the 1970s, A Gathering of Old Men is a powerful depiction of racial tensions arising over the death of a Cajun farmer at the hands of a black man. A group of men stand up for this black man who represents all blacks who have suffered the indignities and pain inflicted on them over the years.

Louisiana

NOLADawn has a couple of suggestions: "For Louisiana how about No Place, Louisiana by Martin Pousson, or you could always go the traditional route and do Tennesee Williams' Streetcar Named Desire."

Let's put them both up for consideration.

In No Place, Louisiana, Nita is sixteen, working in a diner, putting up with the coarse advances of her stepfather, and living on the edge of Jennings, Louisiana, when her brother sets her up on a blind date with Louis Toussaint. He is rude and cheap, Nita thinks, not exactly what she has in mind. But when he offers an engagement ring, Nita accepts what she believes is her ticket out of the place, the life she already feels is stifling her. She deserves better, and Louis can give it to her, if only he will work hard enough.

NOLADawn's review of No Place, Louisiana.

Streetcar Named Desire is the story of Blanche DuBois, fading and desperate, and how her sensuous and brutal brother-in-law, Stanley Kowalski, pushes her over the edge. One online reviewer says no one can be considered well-read without having read this classic.