September began with a feeling of awe and horror at hearing of the human and ecological disaster that hit New Orleans, a mythical city which evokes historical landmarks, delicate wrought-iron balconies and verandas, live oaks and eerie Spanish moss, the labyrinthine and mysterious bayous and live jazz.
 The best way to pay homage to New Orleans is, I thought, to turn to the books which are set in or talk about New Orleans. I selected three among many:
The first one is Kate Chopin’s The Awakening, the story of a young woman who tries to escape the confines of domestic life and awakens to the world through her work as an artist and through her passion for a younger man. New Orleans is the perfect setting to the unfolding drama, a place with deep roots but also a place of beauty, open on the sea and to outside influences.
 Second is John Kennedy Toole’s A Confederacy of Dunces, an irresistible novel with unforgettable characters: “This city is famous for its gamblers, prostitutes, exhibitionists . . .” Walker Percy described it as “a farce of Falstaffian dimensions.” The novel opens with a quote from A.J. Liebling’s The Earl of Louisiana, “New Orleans resembles Genoa or Marseilles, or Beirut, or the Egyptian Alexandria more than they can resemble any place in the interior. Like Havana and Port-au-Prince, New Orleans is within the orbit of a Hellenistic world that never touched the North Atlantic . . .”
 Another lover of New Orleans is Bob Dylan. In his Chronicles I he writes: “The past doesn’t pass away so quickly here . . . The ghosts race towards the light, you can almost hear the heavy breathing-spirits, all determined to get somewhere. New Orleans, unlike a lot of those places you go back to and that don’t have the magic anymore, still has got it.”
Our next event (see schedule under Events) is a presentation of The Interpreter by Alice Kaplan, the author of French Lessons and of the National Book Award Finalist The Collaborator, a biography of Robert Brasillach, one of the very few French intellectuals who were executed at the end of the Second World War for collaboration.
 The Interpreter is based on an account by the French novelist Louis Guilloux, who in 1944 was hired by the US Army to serve as an interpreter at the courts-martial improvised within the army to try the soldiers who had lost their bearing and committed crimes on the local population, most of them accusations of rape and murder. This short account entitled OK, Joe reveals the author’s uneasiness and even sadness as he progressively discovers that the majority of the young men sentenced to death happen to be Blacks. Intrigued by this moving and superb reporting, Alice Kaplan translated the book for the Chicago University Press and decided to investigate the trials described in OK, Joe. Her balanced, extremely well researched authentic institutionalised racism within the US army during the Second World War is an extraordinary document, a rich addition to the history of her country and to the history of the Second World War.
 Homage to Ed McBain/Evan Hunter
by Vincent Pierrot
Ed McBain was one of America’s most prolific crime writers, whose body of work includes more than 100 novels (in that respect, the American Simenon); he passed away this summer. While his new novel is due in October, I would suggest you read some of his earlier novels, and some of his 87th precinct procedural novels: Money Money Money for instance is set on the border with Mexico (as one of the season’s most crucial thriller, Don Winslow’s Power of the Dog). McBain’s novels are easy to read, often short, and in that respect, they are good for readers who want to start reading in English. McBain’s career includes many distinctions, among which the Mystery Writers of America’s Grand Master Award and the CWA/Cartier Diamond Dagger.
Perhaps most of all, I would suggest reading a little gem: Evan Hunter’s Me and Hitch, a short account of his collaboration on the screenwriting of The Birds and Marnie which offers a rare glimpse of Hitchcock’s working methods.
DVDs Highlights
The Village Voice Bookshop has a selection of classic films on DVD and will soon import rare films from the USA. Come to take a look at our section on the first floor next to the cinema section. You will find films by Monte Hellman, Orson Welles, Douglas Sirk, Preston Sturges, Godard’s La Chinoise, Sokurov, Pudovkin, Jarmush, etc…
Even More...
Read more Village Voice Bookshop recommendations of New Hardcover and New Paperback titles under the books tab in the top and bottom navigation links. |
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