Customer Reviews

Crawfish Dreams: A Novel

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If you are looking for a book that speaks of history,family problems,hope, dark secrets, as well as mouth watering recipes to try at the end of the chapters, then this book is for you. Camille Broussard works as a cook for the priests of her parish, but from time to time makes up meat pies and cooks up sauce recipes to sell from time to time. When her son in law(who is also a distant cousin)dies, and leaves her a fortune, which the wife(and Camille's daughter felt should have went to her instead),Camille eventually takes the money and opens a restaurant in the Watts area that initially takes off and sputters. Her family is at war with it, but in the end, love conquers all. interesting story.

Camille Broussard and her husband T-Papa migrated to Los Angeles from
Louisiana, post WWII, in hopes of achieving the American dream and to escape the segregated and racist South. Camille's family consists of seven adult children, whom she raised through the tumultuous Watts Riots and T-Papa's death. Camille's family has drifted from their roots and it is Camille's desire to bring them back. Each child has their own issues to bear, however they want Camille out of Watts but she refuses. We witness each child's history in Watts and hope, along with Camille, for their redemptive souls. As Camille works and cooks for her parish, she concocts a recipe to bring her children together again so that she can retire in peace. Camille's recipe is Camille's Creole Kitchen and together with Pep, her next-door neighbor, they hatch a recipe for achieving her tasty dream. Camille's culinary skills are first rate and Pep is her biggest taste tester, along with her children, despite their reservations concerning the restaurant.

CRAWFISH DREAMS is an edible novel and by weaving back and forth between the past and present, we are able to partake of Camille's Creole recipes-recipes you may wish to try-I sure did! Food is used as a metaphor for a family in crisis, for dreams deferred and the hope of all being tolerable again, if it ever was. Nancy Rawles has crafted an enjoyable recipe of humor, secrets, suspicions and family ties all in the name of a mother's love for her family and herself. One last note-the Haitian Proverbs are excellent antidotes....

Crawfish Dreams by Nancy Rawles is a wonderful novel about a Creole family in California struggling with the after effects of the Watts riots. Camille, the family matriarch, is a widow with seven children.Whether it's the disappointed Yvette, angry Raymond, righteous Anthony, naive Louis, uppity Marc, drunken Joseph or confused Grace-all of Camille's children bear the scars of Watts.

As the story begins, it is 1984, nine years after the death of Camille's husband, T-Papa. Camille is fighting to maintain independence from her children and struggling with the poverty and crime she has watched engulf her neighborhood of over 30 years. Her children are busy living their lives of their own and
have all moved away from Watts except her oldest, Yvette. Camille's grandson, Nicholas, is fresh from his stay in prison for a crime that still haunts his grandmother.

Camille is an excellent cook whose talents and desire to be financially secure lead her into various catering capers. She and her neighbor, Pep, a recovering alcoholic, hatch many schemes to sell Camille's home cooking.

Over the course of the novel, we watch Camille struggle with her past and move past it. We see her grow more accepting of her children and herself. In return, Camille's forgiveness allows her to find love in the most unexpected places.

Throughout the book, food remains a constant staple. Whether it's Camille's oyster po' boys, meat pies, red beans and rice, gumbo or pralines, by the end of the book, you will have worked up an appetite for some down home Louisianan cooking. The recipes sprinkled between chapters are an extra bonus!

All of the characters in Crawfish Dreams are well written. You will recognize at least one of your own family members in the book's colorful array of characters. Overall, Crawfish Dreams is a truthful examination of aging, family, acceptance and love.

Tiffany
R.E.A.L. Reviewers

Good to the bone recipes, family ties, Louisiana folklore and the quest for elusive dreams are stirred up in this gumbo pot of a story in Nancy Rawless spirited sequel to Love Like Gumbo, Crawfish Dreams. In Love we saw Grace, the youngest daughter of Camille Broussard, go through her identity crises, sometimes racially and certainly gender wise. Now we have the matriarch Camilles story, who at age sixty-seven feels her life slipping away from her. All she wants to do is to be able to get ahead just a little before she dies. Cleaning and cooking for the church was not the way she wanted to go out. Her specialty staples of meat pies and seafood gumbo are renowned and it is her desire to open a business and share with the world.

The Broussards are just one of many families that migrated from Louisiana to Los Angeles pre and post WWII and brought their strait-laced Creole culture, mores, history and superstitions. Camilles seven children are her heart and the bane of her existence. Marc, a card carrying member of the black bourgeoisie; Yvette, the sexually frustrated oldest daughter who is married to Juge, an older man in ill health; Grace, the lesbian in therapy, who has been in community college for seven years; Raymond, whose loss of his longshoremans job causes him to wallow in self-pity; Joseph, the Vietnam vet who is an alcoholic living on the streets and Anthony, who has inherited the cabinet making business from T-Papa Broussard, are just some of the colorful personalities. And then there is Nicolas, her nineteen-year old grandson who has just been released from prison and has brought shame to the family. But they all have the same idea, get Mama out of Watts. It is 1984 going into 1985, twenty years after the L.A. Riots. There are those who stayed and those who fled for greener pastures, including many of the Creole families that have lived there since the 30s. But Camille, a widow for nine years, hangs on to the good old days, before the Riots, when families where intact, everyone worked hard, went to Mass together and had big parties with lots of Creole food.

Camille tries a number of enterprises, sells her famous meat pies to church events and festivals, bottles her famous Creole hot sauce, packages pralines, and even concocts a apricot brandy sauce with her neighbor Pep. Then she hits on an idea to open a restaurant, Camilles Creole Kitchen, but she is not one to bother with details like licenses and zoning issues; she just knows her stuff is good. Her kids think she is taking on too much at her age and who would come to the middle of Watts to dine anyway? Meanwhile the Broussards are struggling to understand the past while painting pretty pictures of family harmony to the public but not knowing how to reach out to poor, mentally disturbed Joseph and newly-released Nicolas. Camille feels it is her place to teach her family to love unconditionally and not give up on their dreams.

There are recipes sprinkled through the books such as Miss Camilles Meat Pies and her grandmothers dark pralines. Camille is happy when cooking and the food is a metaphor for the themes of her life. Ms. Rawles beautifully weaves symbolic language corresponding with the seasons of nature as well as the seasons of Camilles life. She also details how the issue of class and color are played out in Creole families struggling to either assimilate or not assimilate into mainstream African American life. This book, the second in the trilogy about the Broussard family, is a delectable treat and I look forward to the third installment.

Dera Williams
APOOO BookClub

Nancy Rawles is a remarkable talent, weaving an intricate tale of a family of Creoles living in mid-80's Los Angeles, into a delicious literary gumbo. Pretty Miss Camille Broussard is the roux, a strong base around which her family, the Watts "riots," and the dark side of Reaganomics all come to vibrant life. The recipes are a clever little bonus, but the story succeeds purely on its own merits.

The cover of this book "grabbed" my attention, and then I was intrigued by the synopsis. This book is an excellent read for all ages, and and awesome suggestion for a book club. The author invited the reader to her world, and we came inside, took a seat, and enjoyed the ride!! Kudos to Nancy Rawles, Kudos!!

This book is a great read, plus you get to have Camille in your life. The matriarch of a rambling family, Camille will burrow inside your heart and brain -- and stay there. I find myself "channeling" her with my own kids! Seriously, this book has everything: great characters that you live with long after you've finished the book, great humor, great recipes, some of the best storytelling ever, plus a view of life from within the gravity-challenged end of various systems of oppression. In the end, the stories testify to the Grand Mysteries of Hope and Love.