In Shelter Me, Daren Dean brings to life the residents of a struggling neighborhood in central Louisiana. Though the town of Satsuma Grove is fictional, the catastrophic flood at the heart of this novel is based on the real and unnamed 2016 disaster, during which twenty to thirty inches of rain fell over just three […]
Allen Mendenhall Interviews Roger Johns, Author of “River of Secrets”
October 18, 2018 by Leave a Comment
AM: Thanks for doing this interview, Roger. Your new novel, River of Secrets, is a sequel to Dark River Rising. Both novels feature Wallace Hartman, a detective in Baton Rouge. What drew you to the detective genre? RJ: Allen, thank you for interviewing me. It’s a real privilege to be able to do this. The […]
“Letters from Paris,” by Juliet Blackwell
May 30, 2017 by Leave a Comment
Reviewed by Johnnie Bernhard Juliet Blackwell’s Letters from Paris is solid reading entertainment with a lovable protagonist, Claire Broussard, whose small-town Louisiana beginnings lead to tragedy. Blackwell builds suspense without sacrificing seriousness or believability, two common victims of the mystery genre. Perhaps that’s the key to Blackwell’s novel – everything about it is “just right.” […]
Laughlin: Romanticist Extraordinaire, A Memoir
July 1, 2015 by Leave a Comment
By Louis Gallo Laughlin, Ghosts Along the Mississippi: An essay in the poetic interpretation of Louisiana’s plantation archictecture—One hundred photographs by the author (Bonanza Books, NY—1961) —Clarence John Laughlin, Aperture Monograph (1973) I. I’ve never believed that literature is an ideal conduit for surrealism other than in spurts such as the “Nighttown” episode in Joyce’s […]
“My Sunshine Away,” by M.O. Walsh
January 20, 2015 by Leave a Comment
Reviewed by Michael Pitts In his debut novel, M.O. Walsh offers an exceptional mixture of adolescent exploration, intrigue, and violence. Weaving between the years of childhood, high school, and adulthood, the text is an exemplary addition to the Bildungsroman tradition with its central focus being the development of a young boy. This narrator must endure […]
June Read of the Month: “The Little Way of Ruthie Leming,” by Rod Dreher
June 5, 2013 by Leave a Comment
Reviewed by Philip K. Jason This soulful biography has the makings of an American classic. It has attributes that are likely to put it on all kinds of reading lists: family dynamics, coping with illness, grieving, religious questioning, small town life, and regional culture to name a handful. Its subtitle pushes some of these buttons: […]