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Dream State: Stories

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Louisiana Limbo Date: October 29, 1995, Sunday, Late Edition - Final Byline: By Gary Krist; Lead: DREAM STATE Stories. By Moira Crone. 189 pp. Jackson: University Press of Mississippi. $18.95. Text: THE house of fiction may be a mansion with many rooms, but if you read a lot of book reviews, you can be excused for thinking of it sometimes as a cramped two-bedroom cottage. Has there been any coming-of-age novel written in the last generation that hasn't been likened by one reviewer or another to "The Catcher in the Rye"? Has any recent author of terse short stories not been accused of engaging in Raymond Carver minimalism? And what writer from south of the Mason-Dixon line has ever escaped allegations of influence by William Faulkner? Well, I defy any critic to liken Moira Crone, the Southern author of "Dream State," to William Faulkner. True, the title story in this smart and exhilarating second collection of stories did win something called the Pirate's Alley Faulkner Society Award, and the action of all eight stories does take place in the Deep South, much of it amid the gorgeous dishevelment of New Orleans. But the sensibility embodied in Ms. Crone's energetic fiction owes little to Faulkner -- or, for that matter, to Flannery O'Connor, Walker Percy or John Kennedy Toole. I'm happy to report that it is utterly sui generis. Take the title story. It begins with a flourish of narrative confidence: "I'm assuming you know who Jessica Broussard is." Of course we do. She's the beautiful, elusive movie star hounded out of Hollywood because of some unnamed scandal, retreating from public view to reinvent herself in picturesque exile. We see her through the eyes of Beryl, her real estate agent, who must help the actress find an appropriate house in her native St. Sebastianville, La. Beryl -- intelligent, witty and irrepressibly articulate -- is no simpering groupie, yet she cannot help being mesmerized by her client's larger-than-life existence. Too shrewd to be a romantic, yet too full of yearning to embrace mundane reality without a fight, Beryl finds herself forced to decide whether Jessica's bankrupt magic is worth the hefty price of belief. Ultimately -- and fortunately -- the mathematics of that equation prove to be anything but simple. Many of Ms. Crone's characters are, like Beryl, adrift, as confused as they are self-aware, as uncertain of what they want to say as they are forthcoming. Often they are transplanted Northerners, dreaming passively of a different life elsewhere -- in San Francisco or Vermont or Jerusalem. They feel trapped in Louisiana, where "all the big questions are still left open . . . are women people, did Elvis die, was slavery wrong?" Their friends, calling long-distance from places other than the Deep South, places that are not weather-beaten and financially depressed and dangerously close to electing David Duke governor, ask them why they are living there. Typically, Ms. Crone's narrators cannot answer this question. They feel dissatisfied, in limbo -- and yet they don't leave. In "Gauguin," for instance, an environmental lawyer named Paul must endure a final Southern assault -- Hurricane Andrew -- before taking off to pursue a sensible romance on Cape Cod. The big wind, however, ends up overturning Paul's plans like so much lawn furniture. Somehow he finds himself canceling his trip north, succumbing to a "sweet homesickness" for the physical and emotional chaos of Louisiana. LIKE the husband in the story "Fever," who jeopardizes his practical marriage by having an affair with a loopy Cajun singer from the local copy shop, Paul eventually makes what seems a totally irrational choice -- taking up with the unbearable divorced mother across the street. As the title "Gauguin" may suggest, there is arguably something patronizing in Ms. Crone's stance toward Louisiana culture. Her fascination with Cajuns, Creoles and various French Quarter types often smacks of well-meaning anthropology, her Northern Gauguins casting off the chill of civilization to experience a more intense life in more colorful climes. On balance, however, Ms. Crone's take on the territory is complex enough to transcend this kind of sentimentality. "Dream State" successfully presents a fresh version of the Deep South, one that is exotic without being either grotesque or romanticized.

I enjoy visiting New Orleans, and the tendency is to just read guides and history books. But excellent fiction, such as Ms. Crone's Dream States, provides as much, or more, insight into the local scene and what makes southern Louisiana unique and worth visiting. Each of the eight stories introduces different characters who provide a cross section of local attitudes, vocabulary, world view and adaptation to one of the few remaining authentic regional cultures in the United States. Highly recommended.

I read this book and it changed my life. These are the best stories I've ever read about New Orleans and Louisiana. Crone has a sharp witty eye, deft ear, and language that will set you free. Read this book and pass it on to a friend.