Elysian Fields
Winner of rare "double crown" of starred reviews from both Publishers Weekly and Kirkus Reviews. - Publishers Weekly Featured Fiction selection.
Simpson Weems is a 36-year-old aspiring poet whose life has been on hold-to the breaking point. All he needs to fulfill his potential is to move to San Francisco, but he's torn between his long-held dream of being a great artist and obligations to his ailing mother and his emotionally volatile brother, the all-demanding Bartholomew. Will someone in his family have to die before he can get to California? And how might that be arranged?
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"A wholly involving story with Faulknerian characters in a fully realized setting. [A] tale of brotherly love and menace. . . . LaFlaur's descriptive talent shines. Fertile imagery drips like Spanish moss: the old buildings collapsing, 'as though the humidity-sodden bricks were returning to mud, ' while 'cloud stacks glowed like the battlements of heaven.' [Main character] Simpson's mental landscape is equally vivid, drawn with such empathy and depth that readers will forgive his perpetual indecision and may even root for him to carry out the removal of his near-deranged brother." --Kirkus Reviews (starred review)
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"Readers will find the author's portrayal of New Orleans convincing and his characters fascinating and fully developed. . . . Life in the Weems family of 1999 New Orleans is anything but Elysian in this engrossing Southern Gothic snapshot. As Simpson ponders whether to kill his brother Bartholomew, he reflects upon their upbringing with mother Melba. At age 36, Simpson works in a copy shop, but fantasizes of escaping to San Francisco and being a famous poet. The obstacle is Bartholomew--as a second grader, he spent a year in a psychiatric ward--who is presented vividly as possibly autistic and 'laced with idiot savantism.' LaFlaur deftly alternates between character perspectives, delving into perceptions and motivations. . . . Simpson's perception of haunted New Orleans hammers home LaFlaur's implication that life consists mostly of dealing with your ghosts." --Publishers Weekly (starred review)
