Customer Reviews

Yellow Jack: A Novel

5 star:		(8)
4 star:		(7)
3 star:		(8)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(3)

 

 

As a native of New Orleans and amateur historian of Creole culture, I found Russell's depiction of the city highly plausible for the period. I'm a sucker for details and evidence of meticulous research when it comes to historical fiction, and Russell put a satisfied smile on my face with the first few pages. Therefore, I would have to disagree with the comment by the reader from Nevada. This is an insightful work for those who enjoy in depth character development. It's simlpy helpful to keep in mind that the main characters are not "des Américains." Furthermore, Russell raises some philosophical questions about art, death and desire which left me wishing the story were just a bit longer. So don't be disturbed if the story takes a provocative turn and leaves you a bit disturbed...

This book is flat-out excellent. The writing is beautiful without overwhelming the strange, strange story; the "historical" aspect is handled deftly, without the trappings of 90s politics--the reader is never led, and this one certainly didn't have to be. This is literature. People should be carrying Josh Russell around on their shoulders. It's twisted and true, it's hot and bothered. Read it.

Russell's Yellow Jack is a wonderfully compact and creative novel. The book contains all the things readers look for: conflict, interesting langauge, unique characters, and superb dialogue. Without a doubt, one of the best novels I've read in the last decade (and I read a lot).

Reading "Yellow Jack", Josh Russel's first novel, is like watching a little-leaguer pick up a bat on the first day and knock his first pitch out of the park. You are left standing in stunned amazement. "Holy crud," you say to yourself, "how did he do that?" The amazement comes from the fact that the little tyke, with no training or form, has yet achieved perfection. Likewise, Russell has created a thing of beauty his first time out.

The story contained within the covers is almost incidental, as is the title. Certainly, there are plenty of scenes involving the various yellow fever epidemics that raged through New Orleans during the 19th century, but that is not what this book is about. Certainly, there is a plot, concerning Claude Marchand, fictional assistant to Daguerre, and his journey to New Orleans and his tribulations while trying to arrange marriage with his true love, but that is not what this book is about.

Instead, this book is about the nature of identity and reality. It is about how, with the right PR, a man might sell himself as a genius, when he is truly a petty thief. Or how a young girl from a good family might seem saintly when she is, in fact, depraved. This book is about how history can get it all wrong and build legends, even when there is documentary evidence, such as photographs, left for posterity. It is about the way we convince ourselves of things, even when those things are contrary to the truth.

Russell underscores the theme by having Claude use his soliographic talents to destroy a politician at the behest of a rival by presenting a truth out-of-context.

Granted, these ideas are not new. They are handled gently here, but masterfully, through various storyteller's tricks: an unnamed academic's descriptions of Claude Marchand's existing photographic plates, Claude's first-person account of the creation of those plates and diary entries made by Claude's octaroon mistress, Millicent, whose version of events sometimes differs.

The language throughout is hushed and magical and though there is much violence, death and tragedy, the tone does not take the bait and become violent itself. Layers of poetry reveal themselves throughout and Russell occasionally scores with phrases that continue to echo.

Certainly, there are negatives. I didn't like any of the characters and was not saddened as they slowly succumbed, one by one, to the yellow fever epidemics, though Millicent emerges as the only character with any strength. But that doesn't alter the fact that she is still a pouting, manipulative person.

The tactic of telling the story through various narrators leaves one feeling that the author is re-mining old ground. But the overall effect is marvelous and well worth reading.

While the characters are strongly built and an interesting structural device has been built in, YELLOW JACK never quite gets off the ground. Every once in awhile the characters will do things simply to push the story in the direction the author wants, and the novel itself doesn't really seem to have a point or any sort of conviction. What is quite admirable are the museum catalog descriptions that extrapolate from the speaker's life based on his art, and then the actual descriptions on that life from the speaker himself. But in the end its not quite worth the effort.

This novel is a spectacular journey, from Paris to New Orleans, where our Daguerreotypist lives and plays with the lower classes, while photographing those of the elite, and then the dead. One wonderful quality is how the author commences his chapters with a present-tense analysis of one daguerreotype by this heretofore unknown artist, and then portrays what was actually occurring in the 1840's. I regret that others have found this volume inadequate, grisly, for I would trade my best dog for the joy of having a first book so bravely and uniquely written.

Cool take on the frame narrative by relating part of the story through descriptions of dageurrotypes and journal entries made by the protagonist's mistress, while letting the dageurrotypist tell part of the story as he grows increasingly mad from mercury poisoning. I was left a little disappointed at the end as I was a little unsure what was true and what wasn't when reading the daguerrotypist's version. All in all, enjoyable especially the historical background regarding daguerrotypes and the Yellow Fever epidemic.

'Yellow Jack' is, on one level, an intriguing and provocative historical novel: a mixture of 'historical narrative', first person narrative, and series of diary entries provide three perceptions of the life of Claude Marchand, a fictional apprentice of Daguerre, the inventor of the first 'daguerreotype' (photograph). On another level, the narrative shifts sometimes leave the reader confused, as there seems to be gaps in information that leaves the whole story incomplete. Author Josh Russell creates a complex character in Marchand; without giving too much away, Marchand is not heroic (except maybe in his own mind). In fact, empathy for him and many other characters is hard to generate; about the only character I thought worthy of sympathy was Millicent, Marchand's octaroon wife/mistress, who puts up with far too much pain and cruelty. It's her diary entries that probably relate the 'truth' of the novel's events. What works in this book is the picture of New Orleans society: if you've been there, Russell really brings the city to life. The liberal attitudes, coupled with a strange morality (mistresses of color, okay; wives of color, not allowed) is wonderfully depicted. The effect of 'Mister Jack' (Yellow Fever) on the society and politics of New Orleans in the mid-19th C is wonderfully portrayed; the 'memorial pictures' of the dead (which Marchand doesn't want to take), the coverups of the number of dead, and the 'live for today' attitude of the populace (repressing fear with liquor, drugs and sex) give the reader a glimpse into a world both different and yet similar to our own. Worth reading, but you'll need a little patience.

I have very mixed feelings about this book. As a native of New Orleans who snaps up any book she can kind dealing with its history, I have to say this was not one of my personal favorites. It wasn't a bad book, but it wasn't a real page turner either. I like the way it was written, using 3 points of view to convey the story and the story itself was not bad. I just really didn't like the characters with the exception of Millicent and I wish there had been more of her insights in this book. She was the only one I really cared about in the whole book. I also felt there was too much left out of this book for readers who may not be familiar with New Orleans' history pertaining to yellow fever, quadroons, customs etc. It did spark my interest in daugerrotypes and I plan to soon visit some museums to look at some of them, but other than that, I didn't take much away from this one.

As the varied responses to this book show, there are all sorts of readers out there. I liked Russell's novel for several reasons. It is an engrossing look into the strange art of the daguerrotype, that phenomenon which swept America in the early and mid-19th century. It is an entertaining study of New Orleans, historically accurate or not, during the dreaded Yellow Fever years. It is a love story with peculiar twists and turns. But what I really liked were the ironic discrepancies between the daguerrotypes' captions, written by some present-day well-meaning art historian, and the actual truth behind the poses. I found the book to be a pleasure to read.