Welcome to Grail, Louisiana -- next to nothing and just beyond reality -- where hoodoo meets Jesus, and townsfolk pray to both. This dark fantasy delves into the psychological and motivational depths of Grail and its residents. Miss Sedele mixes up green cocktails called 'cryptoverdes' at Le Bon Chance. Vida Dumars, owner of the Moonlight Diner, peers into the deepest realms of her customers' hearts as though they were picture windows. Town spirit Good Gray Man has promised good fortune to the town as long as it hangs onto tradition. A quirky, fantastical town's heart and soul are slowly, often painfully revealed in this dark and captivating novella.
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From Publishers Weekly
A lethargic Louisiana backwater with roots sunk deep in supernatural legend provides an atmospheric backdrop for this sultry tale of bayou hoodoo and doomed love. Every 20 years, in obeisance to a local myth dubbed the Good Gray Man, the town of Grail picks a Midsummer Queen whose job is to draw all the bad luck to her so the town can prosper. Enter Jack Mustaine, a wandering musician stranded in Grail just a few days before the end of Vida Dumar's tenure as the reigning queen. Jack sees the alluring Vida as a muse and mate who might inspire his songs with a spark of passion. Vida sees Jack as her deliverer from a reputation as the town pariah and from a diabolical ex-lover who bedevils her with weird sendings. As Jack and Vida pair to find the shared sensibilities that will give them strength, St. John's Eve and the festival of the Midsummer Queen approach with the grim inevitability of Shirley Jackson's lottery. As always, Shepard's (Colonel Rutherford's Colt) forte is his characters, whose emotional lives are invariably more complex and credible than the basic plot he crafts to draw them out. Jack and Vida make an affectingly tragic couple trapped in a preordained fate, but equally intriguing is the chorus of well-drawn locals, whose every gesture and casual word convey a sense of the foreboding and intractable. Laced with sex, superstition and sorcery and illustrated with J.K. Potter photomontages that effectively capture its shadowy magic, this short novel is sure to please Shepard's fans and lovers of dark fantasy fiction.
Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information, Inc.
Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information, Inc.
From Booklist
Jack Mustaine discovers Grail, Louisiana, when the BMW he "borrowed" to leave L.A. breaks down outside the town. The sheriff nearly scams him out of the car before Grail's top dog, Joe Dill, comes to the rescue. Then Dill brings Jack to Le Bon Chance saloon, where Jack starts wondering whether he was rescued. After luscious Vida Dumars takes him home, he starts doubting his sanity. Vida's a prodigious lay, and Jack thinks he's in love, but tomorrow is St. John's Eve, when the new Midsummer Queen will be chosen by the Good Gray Man, and outgoing MQ Vida has to pass the scepter to a 10-year-old. Plenty of people tell Jack to get Vida out of town beforehand, and he wants to, but . . . Shepard proffers the kind of story Val Lewton made into 1940s B-movie horror classics (e.g., I Walked with a Zombie), but he steams it up with sex and purple (well, mauve) prose so effectively that it could be a Twilight Zone episode by Tennessee Williams. Tangy. Ray Olson
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved
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6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Shepard at his very best,
By
This review is from: Louisiana Breakdown (Hardcover)
Two centuries ago, the townspeople of Grail, Louisiana made a deal with the entity they call the Good Gray Man. The Good Gray Man promised good fortune to the town as long as it provided him with a Midsummer Queen he found acceptable. Accordingly, every twenty years, the town elects a 10-year-old girl to be their Midsummer Queen, the person who draws all of the town's bad luck to her for the next two decades until the next queen is selected, and the Good Gray Man comes to take her away forever.
As this year's Midsummer's Night Eve approaches, the town prepares to choose a new Queen. The reigning Queen, the exquisite Vida Dumars, knows her time is short, that the Good Gray Man will soon come for her. Although Vida has faithfully served as the town's Queen, she's not ready to go-thus, she prays for a champion to appear. Enter one Jack Mustaine, who blows into town after his BMW breaks down outside of Grail. Vida casts her spells on Jack, and he falls for her like a ton of bricks. But is Jack the champion she seeks? That's a question nobody can answer until Jack comes face to face with the Good Gray Man. Filled with tension and lurking menace, peopled by fascinating characters, LOUISIANA BREAKDOWN provides further evidence that Lucius Shepard is one of the most original and talented writers working in the field of dark fantasy today. In its first six pages, Shepard creates a living, breathing microcosm, a realistic stage free from cliché. He peoples this world with characters so vivid they threaten to step off the page. He then proceeds to tell a story about good, evil, love, superstition, and destiny, using the traditional elements of dark fantasy to explore his characters' psyches. Told with exquisite compassion, Shepard's novella provided one of 2003's more satisfying reading experiences. Illustrated by J. K. Potter, it's also one of the nicest packages Golden Gryphon has ever offered.
6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
An imaginative and thought-provoking tale,
By Midwest Book Review (Oregon, WI USA) - See all my reviews
This review is from: Louisiana Breakdown (Hardcover)
Louisiana Breakdown is an impressively written and thoroughly entertaining novel by Lucius Shepard that blends superstition and lore with faith, potions, and machinations. When a new figure arrives in a small Louisiana because his BMW breaks down, he becomes caught up in the town's tradition of appointing a ten-year-old Midsummer Queen every twenty years. A dark fantasy, Louisiana Breakdown is commended as an imaginative and thought-provoking tale of the fantastic.
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Like horror?,
By
Amazon Verified Purchase(What's this?)
This review is from: Louisiana Breakdown (Hardcover)
Lucius Shepard is a national treasure.
Louisiana Breakdown is well written, fun up to a point and terrible at the end. Not a book for the faint at heart.
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