Customer Reviews

A Free Man of Color

5 star:		(23)
4 star:		(11)
3 star:		(5)
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1 star:		(2)

 

 

At first, it is difficult to understand what Barbara Hambly was attempting with "A Free Man of Color". Typically, when an author chooses an historical setting, he or she is doing one of two things, bringing light to the past through the artifice of fiction or revealing the present through the veil of the past. If Hambly was doing the former, she did a fine job of evoking old New Orleans. The book takes place during a time when The City That Care Forgot was losing her tenuous grip on her past and becoming a unique product of American industrialism and European traditions. The Civil War was still thirty years in the future and New Orleans, for all the destruction and disease she had seen, for all the blood spilled in her streets still had an air of innocence. This is the story of Benjamin Janvier, recently widowed and returning to New Orleans after 16 years in Paris. This places Benjamin in the unique position of being able to contrast Paris, with it's lack of color distinctions, and New Orleans, with it's infamous "Code Noir" - the well-defined laws governing the behavior of "colored" people and their interaction with the French settlers, or Creoles. This also places the reader in the position of comparing the treatment of blacks in Janvier's day and their treatment today, which makes this something of the latter of the above kinds of novels. Is Hambly trying to tell an engaging and accurately detailed story set in the past? Or is she trying to poignantly underline current wrongs by speaking to us through the past? I'm not sure she is certain which story she wants to tell, which puts the reader in the awkward position of trying to figure it out for themselves. Ben, a surgeon in Paris but, due to prejudice, unable to practice medicine in New Orleans, makes his living as a pianist. On his way to play at an octaroon ball, he runs into one of his former students, Mistress Trepagier, a creole widow who is sneaking into the ball in disguise, desperate to speak with her late husband's mistress. When the mistress is later strangled, Ben, due to his color, seems a likely scapegoat - the victim was a woman of color, the murderer a man of color. Let's hang him and get on with our lives. Thinking he will get no consideration from the police, Benjamin looks into the murder on his own. Hambly seems to have difficulty finding the rhythm in her narrative, like a drummer only slightly out of step with the rest of the marching band. The overall effect is nice, but you keep suspecting her hitching a step in order to catch up. Once she gets in step, however, the effect is mesmerising; the language becomes more fluid, the characters more honest to themselves. From an historical perspective, I fully expected to have Marie Laveau pop up, at least in mention, and I was not disappointed; the greater treat was a cameo by Madame LaLaurie, the famous New Orleans civil rights activist (I'm kidding, of course). Although I had to struggle to get comfortable with this book, it won me over in the end. I am looking forward to the next story in the Benjamin Janvier chronicles.

This book definitely falls into the "how did I miss this?" category. Barbara Hambly is an extremely gifted writer capable of writing atomospheric prose full of emotion and marvelously descriptive. When those gifts are in the hands of someone who can also craft a good mystery, watch out! I am a big fan of historical mysteries, but only if they ring true--if the author somehow manages to evoke the spirit of the times in every character. A Free Man of Color does that, transporting us to the socially confusing and racially diverse world of New Orleans in the decades before the American Civil War.

Hambly paints with remarkable accuracy all the shades and tones of Creole culture: from the French plantation owners down through the mixed race free people of color, and down to the black slaves. Her hero, Benjamin January, is not only a gifted musician but a Paris-educated surgeon, who returned to New Orleans after the death of his wife in Europe. He returns to the city as an insider/outsider, the perfect person to observe the actions of society. When a beautiful mixed race mistress to a wealthy Creole planter turns up at the annual Blue Ribbon Ball in New Orleans, January is there to observe, to analyze, and finally to solve the mystery of her death.

If you like vivid historical mysteries I think you will love this book!

Wow, what a strange book. It made me angry, because it was pretty much fact-based. Pity that busy monster, ManUnkind: we humans can sure talk ourselves into some crazy ways of life. Here we have whites who despise the blacks but will have loads of children by the quarter-blacks, who look down on the full-blooded blacks, who are all looked down on by 'octoroons.' I don't know which group to feel sorrier for, but the whites are certainly swallowing as big a load of bullcrap as they ever fed the slaves. Ben January is a 'colored' man who escaped to Paris, where he learned surgery and music and walked the streets as just another citizen. Returning to New Orleans, he finds he doesn't fit in anymore. He's lost the slave mentality, and as a result he stands out like a big black sore thumb. But he hasn't fallen into hatred, and he solves the mystery he falls into instead with a clear eye. Makes you proud to be a human, of whatever color.

Ever wanted to go back in time? Just hop in the time machine and see the past? Read this; you'll be cured. Hambly leads us down a muddy path into New Orleans at the height of the slavery days, and shows it to us in all its stinking glory through the educated eyes of freeman Benjamin January; a Paris-educated 'colored' whose surgical training and skill on the piano mean little to the white inhabitants of the French-speaking city. January has fled Paris to escape the ghost of his cholera-slain wife, and is a cultured fellow who gives us a slightly modern viewpoint as he struggles to fit back into a world in which he is not allowed to look a white in the eye. Hambly starts with a glossary of the names used to distinguish degrees of prized white blood: octoroon, griffe, sambo. The rich planters all have octoroon or quadroon mistresses, who live in houses bought by their protectors through their mothers' negotiations, and who birth more octoroons and quadroons for the 'placee' system. The white and colored balls are held side by side, and the men circulate between wife and mistress all night. It's not a pretty picture, and January, from his vantage point as the pianist on the white side, sees it all ... all except the moment when a colored girl is strangled, and the blame begins to shift his way. January must solve the crime himself or be blamed for it, and risking slavery, voodoo, and humiliation along the way, solve it he does. Every character in this book, from the Prussian swordmaster Mayerling to the old scarfaced Ewe tribesman Lucius, is trapped in the web of their unsavory culture. It's a clear indictment of the human race; we should all be whipped for letting stuff like this go on. Only the outsiders like Ben and the ridiculous Kaintuck policeman Abishag Shaw have a chance to rise above the steamy, muck-filled gutters and see a hopeful future. A good mystery book, too: all the clues are there if you look back. But I think I'm developing a prejudice against white people after reading it ...

After reading this novel I feel like I have lived in New Orleans in 1833, met some facinating people, almost understand how complex their lives were and the subtle influence color and class had on their lives; but most of all I admire and respect Ben January and want to read more of his adventures. I love mysteries but sometimes feel they are pretty shallow - not this one! A rich and enduring novel that is also an adventure.

I agree with several of the reviewers that this book was difficult to get into and Ms. Hambly added a tremendous amount of detail...that is where I end my agreement with those readers that felt it was too much information. I think we sometimes get lazy and just want the facts. To often we just want story to move along quickly. Yes, I struggled to keep the characters straight and this was definately not the best book for reading on the subway 5 to 10 minutes at a time. But it was wonderful and brought the reality of people outside the norm (indians, blacks and the poor) to the fore and lets those who don't understand their plight an opportunity to get it. I loved the book! But it is best read where you can concentrate on the content.

This was a very well-written historical mystery. It starts a little slow, and it's difficult keeping all the names of the characters straight since there are so many and the names are quite French and different than what most are used to. But the story is extremely well-researched. It's easy to see that this author is in love with her era and her place of choice (New Orleans in 1833). This is a lush, haunting novel like New Orleans itself. The time of the story is Mardi Gras week and Ms. Hambly deftly describes all the decadent pleasures, glittery ballrooms and the very complicated caste system of old New Orleans. The hero in the book is Benjamin January, a free man of colour who makes his living by playing the piano even though he is a trained surgeon. January was born in New Orleans and had moved to France at the age of 16 where he studied to be a surgeon. He made a life for himself there, but his wife dies of a fever, so he heads back home to be with his family. He gets thrown into a messy murder that happens at one of the dances he is playing at. There are many twists and turns in the plots, and the finale I'm sure will shock you, as it shocked me. The book starts slow but builds up momentum the further along the story goes. It's a stunner!

An 1830s masked Carnival ball in New Orleans: what a great way to open a book. Author Barbara Hambly evidently did her homework for "A Free Man of Color:" you can almost hear the music, smell the sweat, taste the food, see the glittering diamonds, the intoxicating costumes. Outside on the streets, as ever, the mobs are also partying: wine, women and song, and the bright shiny carnival beads. But there is a downside to opening on a New Orleans masked ball: it feels like dozens of characters are thrown at us at once. They mainly all have confusing French names, frequently more than one name -- family and formal-- sometimes their professions, and then we're supposed to remember their costumes too? I think I'm as smart as the next person, and I struggled desperately. Eventually I did figure out all the important characters, but two men, Granger and Bouille, went off to fight a duel, and I never did figure out which was which, or exactly why. Never got as good a handle as I would like on Clemence or Hannibal, important supporting characters, either. And as for remembering, hundreds of pages later, that there was a mysterious purple pirate, well, really.

Nevertheless: Benjamin January (Janvier in the French) is a free man of color in Creole (that is, French and Spanish) New Orleans, just as carpet-bagging Americans are beginning to pour in and change everything, disregarding the powerful "Customs of the country," and the "black laws." New Orleans society is quite complicated at the time: next to the white Creoles stand their free cousins, half-brothers and sisters of color, locally graded by the fairness of their skins, and their percentages of black or white racial heritage: Hambly gives us all the local jargon covering these gradations, octaroon, quadroon and so forth, but, once again, I found it, though fascinating, a bit confusing, hard to remember, could have done with a table up front. At any rate, these cousins are also graded on their relationships to the city's most powerful families, and, "mais oui," their beauty. The most beautiful young women are "placees," kept women with their own houses, servants, slaves, carriages, jewels.

January is the son of a "placee," but he has only one white grandparent, and, as sometimes happens, he just popped out dark-skinned: that's an extremely heavy burden to carry at that time and place(not that it doesn't still weigh heavy now.) To find real freedom, he's spent 16 years in Paris, color-blind at the time, where he married and became a successful surgeon. But he's been widowed, and come back home, where he's too dark-skinned to practice medicine; luckily for him, he's a good enough musician and can support himself playing, and giving lessons. He's playing at this ball when a beautiful, pass-for-white placee is killed, and it doesn't take long before he realizes the local constabulary, as we've been long-since taught to expect in similar situations, would rather pin this murder on him than work too hard at it, or prosecute a white.

So, of course, January sets out to clear his name. The book does start slow, blame that brilliant but confusing masked ball, and takes some further time to get going, but eventually it rolls along like New Orleans' famous old river, the Mississippi. The New Orleans scenes continue to be riveting reading; the plantation scenes less successful, though still very informative. Hambly does emphasize the history over the mystery; that's solved off-the-cuff, late in the day.

How you feel about this book, therefore, will be largely determined by how well you like historical fiction; not all of us do. But it also closes with a bang, a very modern masquerade, as it happens. Worth picking up.

I really enjoyed how much detail this author provided in the book. I was not knowledgeable of the 1830's/New Orleans and had a wonderful time reading about all the different levels of society and conflicts of that time. I felt Hambly gave enough information to make me feel as if I were a part of the story - a fly on the wall if you will. That to me, is the sign of an extremely talented writer.

I'm a fan of Ms. Hambly's vampire work and picked up Free Man of Color because of its focus on New Orleans -- a city I recently visited and of which I've learned a bit through the work of Anne Rice. Hambly's characters from the hero/detective Benjamin Janvier to the bigoted Kaintuck American takes you back to a time when a city and society were being pushed back by forces beyond their control. On top of that you get a very solid mystery to solve. Hambly describes pre-Civil War practices and traditions in a rich and descriptive way. Her use of language in describing the architecture, smells, sounds, tastes, fashions and actions of the characters bring you right into this smelly, dirty, unfair, conflicted but fascinating society. I look forward to the sequel and learning more about New Orleans and America's history. And to watch the development of a relationship between Janvier and Shaw. And hopefully get more intricate mysteries to solve. My only problem is I think Hambly put in too many plot and character twists for one book. I wonder what's left for the sequel?