Customer Reviews

The Unnatural History of Cypress Parish

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(4.5 stars) Writing from the point of view of elderly New Orleans native Louis Proby on the eve of Hurricane Katrina, author Elise Blackwell fills this novel with vibrant scenes of Cypress Parish, just to the south of New Orleans. The contemporary Cypress Parish, with its asphalt highway connecting it to New Orleans, its fast food restaurants, and its "noseful of stink that only a paper mill can churn out" offers a sharp contrast to the way of life in which the speaker grew up. As he reminisces about "the water that rose in 1927," Louis tells about the innocence of his childhood, and his understanding of his father, his family, and their values.

What follows is a beautifully realized story, a mixture of delicate lyricism with harsh reality, as Louis, then seventeen, discovers the way the world works, and especially the way it works in New Orleans. As he discovers love with one of his classmates, he also discovers new truths about his father and his friends, depicting the everyday injustices of whites against blacks, including some in which he himself participates. Some men, like Charles Segrist and Olivier Menard, he learns, control such vast sums of money that they can even control political outcomes.

Throughout the novel, and running parallel with Louis's personal story, is his story of the Mississippi River as it reaches flood stage in 1927, so intensely depicted that it assumes the status of a major character. Whirlpools so fast and so big that they can swallow large animals, and even a house, reflect the turbulent and unpredictable currents which run beneath the seemingly placid surface. As the river starts its ominous rise, flood bulletins issued by meteorologists are ignored, and as the river reaches its crest, Louis's agonized understanding of how the world of men works also peaks.

From the outset, Blackwell's wondrous descriptions and sense impressions create a vivid understanding of time and place as she balances the most lyrical with the most realistic details--in Grenada, for example, Louis notes that the odor of the sugar factory blends with that of the abattoir. Exceptionally precise, Blackwell wastes not a word, developing strong themes of growing up, learning responsibility, and respecting the natural world--while resisting the temptation to tug at the heartstrings by drawing obvious parallels with the recent Katrina disaster. Beautifully crafted and exceptionally well realized, with quotations from Pliny the Elder to give it additional universality, this short novel puts the Katrina disaster into the context of the New Orleans floods of 1922 and 1927--and even floods from Roman times. n Mary Whipple

Reflecting the turbulent history of Louisiana and the ungovernable Mississippi River, this novel, written while the protagonist awaits the full force of Katrina, harkens back to another devastating flood in 1927. Like the present day reality of lives in jeopardy, the earlier tragedy was also exacerbated by damaged levees and the sacrifice of one area of a population for another, in this case the destruction of Cypress Parish to save greater New Orleans, a flourishing city in the late 1920s. Now an elderly man reminiscing on his youth, Louis Proby begins his narrative at seventeen, on the cusp of manhood, a dutiful son with a love of learning. Although his father wants him to become a physician, Louis leans towards the natural sciences, describing the natural habitat of Cypress Parish through the eyes of one who would retain those images over the passing years.

William Proby, a logger and company-town superintendent, teaches his son some early lessons about survival in the world at large, taking Louis along as he deals with parish life. But Louis learns as well from the men he meets as a driver for a wealthy businessman, more sophisticated and worldly entrepreneurs, as well as experiencing the rush of first love with a woman he will never see again after the flood. In any case, the careful plans of many families are swept away by the rising tide of the Big Muddy, the levees unable to stave off the ravages of nature's excess and man's intemperate planning. To be sure, powerful men realize the enormity of the danger to the parish, dire warnings of the coming disaster reported months before it occurs, but such is the voracious nature of profit that a few wealthy men make decisions that will destroy the futures of those with no voice to ameliorate such decisions. Thus it happens, Cypress Parish is dynamited, inundated with flood water to save the more important and burgeoning New Orleans, all of Louis' childhood memories submerged in a watery grave.

Retelling his youth, Louis describes a father who is a fair but harsh taskmaster, the differences of white and black existence in 1927 Louisiana, the social construct that rigidly restricts congress between races and the occasional case of leprosy that continues to plague the area. Against the background of the beauty of a natural environment on the banks of the Mississippi, Louis' first brush with intimacy is beautifully framed by his inchoate desire and the pull of family responsibility, painfully torn by the choices he is forced to make. His family quartered with the whites during the flood, Louis doesn't report much of the scandalous treatment of blacks after the disaster, but does capture that particular nostalgia with which the elderly remember the distant days of childhood. For all the attraction of those days, clearly the same harsh societal restrictions continue to mar the image of a simple America. Albeit softened by memory, life is never as beneficent as it seems in one's youth. Luan Gaines/2007.

In this stunning novel, Elise Blackwell beautifully interweaves natural history, human history, and the events surrounding the 1927 Mississippi River flood. Louis Proby is a boy of 17 during that spring, and he learns a great deal about what it means to be a man. His teachers include an artist who loses himself in the natural world and a man of wealth and power who takes Louis into the back rooms of New Orleans where a group of men with a great financial stake in that great city decide to blow up the levees and flood "Cypress" Parish in order to save New Orleans. The human cost of the flood is in here, but above all this is the story of the good and bad in people, and how difficult it can be for a young person to figure out which is which, all of it told with the colors and rhythms of the Mississippi escaping its banks. I would highly recommend this fine novel.

In Elise Blackwell's second novel, The Unnatural History of Cypress Parish, she tells a compelling story of the 1927 flood in Louisiana. Louis Proby, the main character, now living in New Orleans, is 95, and looks back on his life when he was 17 years old awaiting the first flooding of New Orleans.

This is a tale of sacrifice and heroism with a delicate balance of history and fiction as it portrays a family in the mid 1920's. Many characters seem authentic and come alive as Louis narrates his account. He remembers Cypress Parish was destroyed because the city fathers said dynamiting the levees was necessary to save New Orleans. Louis always knew the truth that his own father had played an important role in the decision which allowed Cypress Parish to go under pointlessly.

Proby lives through a complex time in history. Louis writes detailed descriptions of seedy clubs in Crescent City (New Orleans), of bootlegging, of levee construction, of Carville leper colony and the philosophy of Pliny the Elder. Louis falls in love with a French girl by the name of Nanette Lancon, but loses his heart as she wanders away from him.

This book delicately balances history with fiction and shows how politics destroyed a city and changed an entire way of life in Cypress Parish.

This powerful story is of a young man and events which lured him from boyhood to manhood. He learns the truth about his father and how he was one of the driving forces which helped save New Orleans. Because of Blackwell's upbringing in Louisiana, she brings life to the South, accuracy to people, and reality to places. She thoroughly researched the era, used familial records and historical events, to accurately weave these materials into her book. A grim subject matter embraces the reader with a feeling of pleasantness because of Elise's elegant prose.

Readers will appreciate the life experiences in the 1920's as Louis Proby awaits his flood. This book is highly recommended especially after the disaster in New Orleans with Hurricane Katrina and the failing levees.

Clark Isaacs
Reviewer

My reading group read is reading this second novel from this up and coming Southern Author, Elise Blackwell. I truly enjoyed the characters and immersion into the culture of 1927 Southern Louisiana. Not being from the south, this novel did not apologize for the culture, but presented it as was and the story came to life through the characters as they each made decisions based on their social position, economic and family interests. It is a truly enjoyable read and a book I would recommend to others who want some insight into a part of American life that is not urban but truly shows that all of us - regardless of where we live in this nation - are more alike than different. What I found most insightful was that the decisions in the communities where we live are made by a few and through compromise and are often not motivated by seeking the greater good, especially for the poor. A haunting novel that does truly speak to parallels between a 1927 flood event and Hurricane Katrina.

This is a lovely literary work of art by the fabulous Elise Blackwell. It is entrenched in the rich history+culture of Louisiana in years gone by. Borrowing from her granfather's life a rich tapestry is woven that evokes images of the difficulty that has been La's history.Memorable and relavent with the more recent hurricanes of New Orleans,a book to cherish!

Set in the 1920's, this was an interesting read with a unique combination of events: the impending flood and the "political" response to it mixed together with family dynamics and a touch of Hansen's Disease. I especially like the "memoir" feel of the book although it is fiction. The short chapters also lend themselves to the mixture of events. I consider this a "good read" - short, quick, and interesting.

I would have said this is engaging, nicely done historical fiction; however, it turns out there is no Cypress Parish, and it is not clear from the afterword whether the diversion of flooding victimized some other parish. It is good social history, and there are many good characters, but they are not deeply drawn.

For a really well written novel with an engaging teenage protagonist, set in a small Canadian town during the 1930's, I would recommend "The Other Side of the Bridge" by Mary Lawson.

The skies are darkening as the weather service predicts a huge type 4 maybe even 5 hurricane to hammer the gulf coast of Louisiana and Mississippi. The media focuses in on what Katrina might do to New Orleans, but ignores the impact on some of the other locales like Cypress Parish. Nonagenarian Louis Proby waits for the perfect storm to come ashore from his home as he reflects on the storm of the previous century that destroyed Cypress Parish in 1927.

He was seventeen years old, one of four offspring of Cypress Parish's lumber company superintendent, wheeler dealer William Proby. Louis understood that his dad's position meant he ran the Parish also. Louis, at his father's coaxing, planned to become a doctor, but currently was making money chauffeuring lumber company official Charles Segrist to and from New Orleans; he got the job because of his dad, but enjoys the side benefits of partying at the clubs. However, though a teen, it is the plan and execution that his father condoned for a fee that haunts him most eight decades later. The plan included blowing up the Cypress Parish levee to release the floodwaters there that will destroy that backwater in order to keep New Orleans safe, but the teen begins to believe the destruction of his home is unnecessary, but only money matters.

Using Katrina as a hook, THE UNNATURAL HISTORY OF CYPRESS PARISH is a fabulous look back to Bayou politics and history during the Huey Long era through the filter of a senior citizen waiting out the latest storm of the century. The story line is character driven as Louis knows what he lost when the levees were dynamited besides a home; he thinks back to Nanette and what could have been if only the power brokers including his father were not greedy. Readers will appreciate his reflections on life in 1920s Louisiana.

Harriet Klausner