The Gar Diaries, in an almost surreal way, deals with the problems of growing up working class in South Louisiana toward the end of the 20th century. The main character, Lucas Jeanfreaux, has no illusion about his troubled life along these bayous of Louisiana. Born into a troubled, working class existence at the very end of the Vietnam war, Lucas understands only three things at a very early age: there was a war and now it¿s over, there is something dark about his life, and, somehow he is not like other people. With extraordinary honesty, The Gar Diaries will appeal to your most sensate side and your most brutal side. Lucas Jeanfreaux will carry you through the beauty and horror of his world and his fight for inner redemption.
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1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Not Your Typical Memoir,
By Neil W. White "producer/director/editor" (Oxford, MS (not England)) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)
This review is from: The Gar Diaries (Paperback)
Louis Bourgeois' The Gar Diaries, is a refreshing break from the modern memoir's obsessive navel gazing. Bourgeois didn't have that luxury; he was otherwise occupied -- listening to imaginary friends tell him to eat cockroaches until he vomits, bludgeoning his neighborhood friend with a hammer, listening to his father threaten to kill him (and later watching the man get stoned in the Louisiana marsh), searching for truth amid draconian nuns and old black men with mustard colored eyes and, ultimately, coming to terms with a harrowing mishap that left the author disfigured.
And Bourgeois' violent childhood is just the beginning. There is no fluff here. Bourgeois is a poet. He knows writing. That, coupled with the turmoil of his early life, makes for a lethal combination. Here, I need to say that I know Louis Bourgeois. But I never much cared to get to know him. We are different. I believed him to be aloof and arrogant, like a French artist who kept his left hand neatly tucked inside his blazer pockets while waving a cigarette with his right. Holding forth about the sorry state of our people, our writers, our culture. But as I read The Gar Diaries, as I flinched at each brutal, wrenching scene, I better understood the man writing the book. I identified with the armor he built. I empathized with his love of the quirky geography. I came to see why he had an unusual worldview. And I finally understood why I never saw a cigarette in his left hand. In the end, I felt like I might want to get to know him better. With memoir, I couldn't ask for much more. Neil White Writer & Playwright Oxford, Mississippi
5.0 out of 5 stars
Family Review,
By Big Five Mom (South Jersey) - See all my reviews
Amazon Verified Purchase(What's this?)
This review is from: The Gar Diaries (Paperback)
I was drawn to read this book because Louis is my never-met cousin and I wanted to read memories of his that would remind me of time I spent in the South, including Slidell, when I was a child. I was not disappointed! My favorite chapter is any one with fishing references, but mainly the one with my Aunt Claire, his grandmother. I really enjoyed the style, so direct, and the short chapters whole unto themselves. Whether any of it is truth or fiction-as other reviewers have intimated-I do not know. It is not my memory. My own memories of the South are happier-but that was my memory. I felt my lack of experience with the many philosophical references, so I am engaged to work on that.
Should not good reading do that-either make you enriched or cause you to seek more? Yes, there are dark areas, not a book for pollyannas!
5.0 out of 5 stars
Poetic non-fiction,
By The Dude (California) - See all my reviews
This review is from: The Gar Diaries (Paperback)
I've never been to Bourgeois' Louisiana, but after reading this riveting and haunting memoir I feel as if I know this land, these people, as I know myself. Even if you have no regional ties to LA, or the South, the poetry of this work will enthrall you. Hands down, this is one of the most beautiful works of prose I've read in a very long time.
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