"Reading Dixie Bohemia " copyright 2018 Kristin Fouquet Since early childhood, I’ve had an affinity for the 1920s. I loved traditional jazz, flapper fashion, bobbed hair, and the seemingly laissez-faire lifestyle. I read nonfiction of New York, Chicago, and Paris of the era. With the exception of Chapter 2 of the wonderful book, Madame Vieux Carré by Scott S. Ellis , I had not read much of this specific era in my native New Orleans. John Shelton Reed’s Dixie Bohemia provided that much-desired closer glimpse. The book is focused on a circle of creative characters: writers, painters, architects, actors, photographers, illustrators, tour guides, preservationists, mostly of the French Quarter, along with their hangers-on and poseurs. The majority of these “Famous Creoles” (an inside joke) were not native to New Orleans and some not even the South. New Orleans is an obliging environment which has attracted her share of transplants wanting to reinvent themselves. A...