Amazon.com Review
Love Like Gumbo is a rich stew of family ties, budding lesbian sexuality, and Creole culture set in 1978 South Central L.A. This is Nancy Rawles's first novel, and it bears the marks of her previous work as a playwright--crisp dialogue and characters portrayed more with gesture and movement than narrative. Protagonist Grace Broussard is a 20-year-old caught between the traditions of her Creole family and her love for her Mexican girlfriend. This warm, funny novel will appeal to women who question the relation between cultural tradition, family obligation, and an individual's sexual choices.
From Library Journal
Rawles's paean to Creole family life vividly chronicles the Broussards, who, despite their exodus from Louisiana to South Central Los Angeles, maintain all the traditions of home. Focusing on the youngest daughter, Grace, the novel examines the conflicts a family member faces when she goes out on her own. Grace is so paranoid about leaving home that she devises a ten-point plan for shocking her family. They will be glad, therefore, to get rid of her, but she doesn't reckon on the presence of her dead father, who refuses to stay buried, or the childhood memories that define her life. Finally, Grace realizes that, like the okra in the gumbo, she is less on her own than as part of the Broussard family stew. This novel celebrates family life at the same time it reminds readers that separation doesn't necessarily mean rejection. Rawles's first effort is sure to please fiction lovers.?Andrea Caron Kempf, Johnson Cty. Community Coll. Lib., Overland Park, Kan.
Copyright 1997 Reed Business Information, Inc.
Copyright 1997 Reed Business Information, Inc.
