Authors: Joshua Clark (Editor), Christine P. Horn (Editor), Joshua Clark (Designed by), James Nolan
ISBN-13: 9780971407671, ISBN-10: 0971407673
Format: Paperback
Publisher: Light Of New Orleans Publishing
Date Published: March 2003
Edition: (Non-applicable)
Joshua Clark is a fiction and travel writer, editor, photographer, and filmmaker. He lives in New Orleans, Louisiana.
Branching across every genre, from mystery and romance to flash fiction and prose poetry, this anthology of works by preeminent writers on the heart of New Orleans features a previously unpublished story by Tennessee Williams, as well as stories by Richard Ford, Ellen Gilchrist, Robert Olen Butler, Andrei Codrescu, Barry Gifford, Poppy Z. Brite, Julie Smith, John Biguenet, Nancy Lemann, and Valerie Martin, among others.
The characters in these works find themselves everywhere from Sarajevo on the eve of the First World War to Algiers Point just across the Mississippi River, but their stories are all anchored in the French Quarter. They wander from the New World of the 18th century to a rooftop view of Bourbon Street on the cusp of the third millennium. Interspersed with the history of the city, these stories penetrate the standard clichés and reflect the true sense of the French Quarter—its sensuality, its mystery, and the fascinating life behind its walls.
Whether surrealism or satire, these exceptional stories are without exception beautiful, poignant, tragic, and comic.
None has ever given us such an unabashed, intimate view into the mindset of Tennessee Williams in his later years.
Introduction | 9 | |
Foreword | 17 | |
Map | 22 | |
Ramos Gin Fizz | ||
"The Last Bijou" | 24 | |
"Fairy Tale" | 37 | |
"The New Orleans of Possibilities" | 47 | |
"Two Photographs by Walker Evans" | 62 | |
"Blue Elephant" | 64 | |
"Trompe l'oeil" | 71 | |
New Orleans Mint Julep | ||
"The Passion of Hypolite Cortez" | 78 | |
from Fleeing the Restoration | 87 | |
"Pretty Birdie and the Toy Pomeranian" | 97 | |
"Puppy" | 108 | |
"House of Mischief" | 135 | |
"Annie" | 142 | |
Bourbon | ||
"Burgundy" | 154 | |
"S.I.N.ners" | 156 | |
"A Bus Named Cemeteries" | 177 | |
"Go to Hell" | 180 | |
"Appealing for the Truth (A Sad Joke)" | 181 | |
Hurricane | ||
"Sunday" | 186 | |
"Summerteeth" | 187 | |
"Summertime" | 196 | |
"The Dive" | 199 | |
"Ties" | 212 | |
Dripped Absinthe Francaise | ||
"Tide of the Sun" | 220 | |
"Penny Pitching" | 261 | |
"Tracking the Double Yes" | 269 | |
"Mussolini and the Axeman's Jazz" | 270 | |
"Conjure Me" | 291 | |
"Gregory's Fate" | 304 | |
Sazerac | ||
"Sex in the Summer of Discontent" | 312 | |
"Making Groceries" | 314 | |
from A Recent Martyr | 316 | |
"La Vie En Rose Construction Co." | 324 | |
"Lost Text: Hotel St. Pierre" | 335 | |
"Brownsville" | 354 | |
adapted from Malaise | 357 | |
Obituary Cocktail | ||
"The Land of the Poppies" | 359 | |
"The Night Was Full of Hours" | 365 | |
Biographical Notes | 370 | |
Acknowledgements | 377 |