ANNE SIMON'S LATEST: BLOOD OF THE BELIEVERS

A few years ago, when The Honorable Anne Simon decided to write police procedural novels, a series of books with "Blood" in the titles, she launched a career revealing her talent as a writer that equaled her success in the field of law. In this month's publication of the third novel in her series, Blood of the Believers, she continues to showcase her talents as a writer based on her experiences in the legal field. She delivers a rich, well-plotted novel that holds the reader in suspense with two homicide investigations which take place in Acadiana, her adopted home.

Simon explores her adopted home territory using excellent insight and a highly literate style to achieve an authoritative crime novel. Her descriptions of Acadiana resonate with her love of the area that has been her home for over fifty years. A sample of her ability to describe Acadiana in a setting that affects an excellent "lift-off" is featured in the "Prologue" to Blood of the Believers:

"Shaded by a canopy of drooping willow trees, a flat-bottomed bateau plied the shoreline of a narrow bayou leading from the south end of Catahoula Lake. The prow of the wooden boat poked in and out of stands of cypress knees protruding from dark sludge at the water's edge. Sitting on a plank in the stern of the bateau, an old man nudged the tiller to the port and starboard, his gnarled and sun-browned hand controlling their course. An outboard motor purred behind him..."

The story opens when Homicide Detective Ted D'Aquin's ten-year-old son Andre discovers a body while crabbing in Catahoula Lake with his grandfather and proceeds through several homicide investigations, including the murder of a prominent local citizen's eccentric wife who collects dolls

"in varying stages of construction [covering] the surface. Cloth bodies, china heads, and bins of sewing supplies — material, ribbons, and buttons — spilled from the shelves of china cabinets along the walls. The second doll room showed off the finished products, groupings of the most elaborately dressed examples of the collection. Probably fifty little ladies in satin dresses had at hand their imagined needs: miniature tables, chairs, utensils, carriages for their babies..." 

At the latter scene, another body of an unidentified black male is discovered, and Simon is off and running, involving the reader in two investigations by Ted D'Aquin and his partner Lorraine LaSalle, with the assistance of District Attorney Dennis Byrne. The novel features a complex plot involving the two criminal cases; in addition, an ongoing search for D'AQuin's wife, a probation officer who disappears while making a routine visit in the field, provides an intriguing side story. Simon is convincing in her ability to achieve a unified story with the cases at hand, including a surprise finale.

When I read Blood of the Believers, I was mesmerized by Simon's well-paced prose and her facility to create the tension that identifies a superb crime novel — I thought of Ruth Rendell and P.D. James, who have given readers first-rate novels that move us through suspense-filled yarns rich with allusion and clever plots. Simon's familiarity with police procedure and the courtroom serve her well in creating the kind of high excitement Rendell and James achieved in their crime novels.

As another adopted daughter of Acadiana, I appreciate Simon's colorful descriptions of the bayou country that equal her predecessor, James Lee Burke — also, her deft touch in creating unusual personalities and locales of Acadiana; e.g., Brother Noah Norbert of the "Church of the Blessed Believers," one of the characters who enhances the intricate plot.

"At the front of the room, a tall white man wearing an electric blue robe with a white cross emblazoned on the front stood on an elevated platform behind a podium. Like the statue of Christ above Rio, he held his arms spread wide...Stage right, a dozen men and woman with a range of skin tones swayed in a syncopated rhythm as they hummed a dirge....a ten-foot-square banner on the wall behind the podium proclaimed 'Let the Believers Testify to His Glory'..."

Because of the numerous characters who move in and out of this tense novel, a List of Characters is included in the preliminary pages of Blood of the Believers, and several maps assist readers in identifying crime scenes. The arresting cover art was done by New Iberia artist, Nan M. Landry.

Hopefully, this brief review will titillate followers of Simon's "Blood Series" to read the latest compelling novel in which Simon is at her suspenseful best. An absorbing and well-written read by an author who has an unusual way of looking at cases, but respects authenticity. Spellbinding storytelling.

Anne L. Simon was born in the East, educated at Wellesley, Yale and Louisiana State University Law Schools, practiced law with her husband Jerry, raised a family, and became the first female judge in the area. Now retired, she travels, enjoys family near and far, takes long walks with her dog, Petey, and writes.

Published by Border Press Books, P.O. Box 3124, Sewanee, TN 37375 and at Amazon.com.

“A SENSE OF SELF AND PLACE”

One of the publications to which I subscribe is a magazine entitled Cooks Illustrated, a periodical that contains recipes, information about cooking utensils and other products, tips about processing food — a panoply of food fare contributed by three dozen test cooks, editors, and cookware specialists. Members of this staff test recipes over and over again until they achieve food excellence and also test kitchen equipment and food brands. My favorite articles in the magazine are editorials written by founder and editor Christopher Kimball. The editorials usually contain reflections on how to live a good life or highlight New England (Vermont) people and their way of life.

This morning while I had to sit still and treat an ailing back and leg with light therapy, I re-read an old editorial by Kimball that incited a lot of pondering in me. Although Kimball focused on the character of Vermonters, his musings, written in a style much like the essayist E.B. White, would appeal to a universal audience (in my opinion). The editorial was entitled “The Golden Rule,” and he prefaced his musings with: “It isn’t easy to scratch the surface of a Vermonter…” and concluded with the thought: “We often measure life by the number of new experiences we accumulate…Vermonters measure what remains steady…each of us is expected to measure up in the eyes of our neighbors. That’s the golden rule in country living, a sense of self and place in service of others…”

This editorial in a food magazine struck me as one that describes people who live in my first home of New Iberia, Louisiana. Recently, when a flood occurred in Acadiana, I went on Facebook to find out whose homes had been flooded so I could offer prayers and, in several cases, the use of my home, which wasn’t flooded. On Facebook, I read numerous accounts of the characteristic banding together of those in my home town — a place that already had the reputation of unifying “in service to others” in the event of disaster. The history of Acadiana is alive with the courage and steadfastness of those exiled from their native Nova Scotia by the British as far back as the 18th century.

During the recent flooding, when I read about the unifying acts of those who weren't flooded — how they helped their neighbors — I remembered the courage and steadfastness shown by everyone in Acadiana during and after Hurricanes Katrina and Lily. Victims of the flooding fled from New Orleans and environs to New Iberia for help, where they knew they’d find the unique hospitality for which Acadiana is noted.

After the recent deluge, those who had escaped the flooding went in groups, often in boats, to rescue flood victims, to help tear down the sheet rock in flooded homes and to reconstruct interiors, carry out sodden furniture, cook gumbos and étouffée for evacuated friends and family. With typical joie de vivre, they gave thanks that the flooding had spared many of them by cooking good food, storytelling, and holding rosary sessions and church services of thanksgiving. One of the unique ways they showed their gratitude for lives spared was through collecting rocks from the countryside, painting them with cheerful pictures — flowers, trees, people’s faces, anything that showed a “sense of place” for their lovely bayou country home. They shared these objects of art with their friends on Facebook. I don’t know where the repository for the rocks is located, but I hope to find out when I travel back to bayou country this month.

No, Vermonters aren’t the only people who measure what remains steady; however, reminders from editors like Kimball certainly seem timely in light of the storms and hurricanes that disrupt us this time of the year…not to mention the political storms that have made all of us uneasy about the country’s leadership. But I’ll be happy to return to bayou country to stay awhile among south Louisianans who have “a sense of self and place in service to others.”

Photograph by Victoria I. Sullivan, taken from my recent book of poetry, A Slow Moving Stream.

SETTLING IN WITH HOORAH PLANTATION

When you spend spring/summer seasons in one state of the U.S. and fall/winter in another state, transitions from one place to another are often difficult. However, every time that I move back to Louisiana for the fall and winter seasons, I go through a little exercise that helps me “settle in.” I dust off my shelf of Louisiana books and find one that records the color and culture of my native state and sit down amidst the upheaval of moving to read.

This return trip I picked up one entitled Hoorah Plantation by New Iberian Al Landry. Al published the memoir several years ago for his children and grandchildren, and, as Al says, “the children and grandchildren of my friends and relatives so they might have some knowledge of their background and heritage.” The memoir covers the years from 1930-1945, a time that I’ve been writing about in my last two books of poetry — the era of no computers, televisions, central AC, cell phones, and other modern conveniences, but as Al writes, “we did have… one telephone in the house used almost exclusively by adults, ten or fifteen cent movies…a large console radio, good school clothes…”

Al explains that Hoorah Plantation is about the ethnic and cultural differences and relationships among the various peoples of New Orleans, the River Road, and Acadiana. His father was one of the descendants of the original Spanish settlers of New Iberia, and his mother a descendant of the Acadian exiles. One of his ancestors, Raphael Segura, built a home on the southern shore of Spanish Lake west of New Iberia and lived to be 98 years old. Al is a descendant of one of Raphael’s three marriages, described in New Iberia as a descendant of “the first bed.” (Can’t beat that for homespun aptness!)

Al is known as one of New Iberia’s outstanding raconteurs and in Hoorah Plantation, he provides amusing glimpses of the local French culture; e.g., a chapter entitled “Wad He Say?” This chapter is defined as a section that explores the misuses of vocabulary in south Louisiana. He records a few colorful examples: 

-I had to put my wife in the hospital — she was full of Noxzema — but they gave her an epidemic in the rectory and she’s getting better.
-I don’t know why I’m gaining weight, I just eat one French bread for breakfast and put skin milk and sacrament in my coffee.
-He’s so rich he must be a typhoon.
-Well, you’ve buttered your bread, now you have to lie in it.
-My aunt died of a cerebral hemorrhoid.
-I got nothing but seer-sucker vines growing on my fence”
 

Hoorah Plantation was the name of Al’s Grandma’s house, and his recollections of his grandmother are hilarious. He recalls that his Grandma spoke entirely in French, except for the phrase she used when Al and his family arrived or left: “I can’t believe.” Al described his grandmother to me one night when I had dinner at Lagniappe Too, the café he and his wife Elaine owned on Main Street of New Iberia. Al often acted as the host of the café, moving among tables and entertaining local patrons, as well as visitors from throughout the world. He later included this description of Grandma he had related to me in Hoorah Plantation: “We could never sit on her lap because it began at her chin and ended at her knees, one enormous, softly-rounded mass. She usually wore black, shapeless, full-sleeved, long dresses, with her important keys fastened to a white rope around her middle. She was only 4’9” tall. When the servants needed a key to unlock the pantry or a storage room, they would have to search for the collection of keys somewhere around Grandma’s middle. This intense search would tickle Grandma, and she would giggle like a school girl until the keys were found…”

Al Landry, who graduated from Tulane University with a Bachelor of Architecture degree, practiced architecture in New Iberia for many years and painted pictures of local characters, night life, and social activities in Acadiana. His wife Elaine taught private piano lessons and created soft sculpture dolls called “Grunchkins.” The couple opened Lagniappe Too Café in New Iberia in 1986 and operated it for over 25 years before retiring. I understand that Al is still playing the role of a raconteur at Garden View, just down the road from the point where his ancestors landed in flatboats and established Nueva Iberia.

From the above excerpts, readers can see how such reading provided my immediate re-immersion into the culture of Teche country. I am one of those who tasted bayou water 51 years ago and was destined to always return, despite the mosquitoes dancing on my window panes, the mud and flood week-end, and the humidity that enveloped me after I descended from The Mountain at Sewanee, Tennessee.