Le Salon Annex

Written under a pseudonym and told from the first-person perspective, in detailed intimacy, Carter Monroe’s novel reads like a   roman à clef .   Journey   captures only a few days in the summer of 1971 in North Carolina. The narrator and protagonist, Eddie Watson, is a nineteen-year-old college student looking to escape his family and find some fun. What begins as a night out for Eddie with friends and acquaintances, who are all attending a concert, gradually becomes the onset of an insightful quest for his self-awareness and identity. And this is only the beginning for him. Find   Journey .

  Like many child performers, Ingrid Lucia didn’t have much of a choice. She was expected at an early age to entertain. She danced with her family band as they performed in Jackson Square in New Orleans, the underground subways of New York City, and traveled with two Mexican circuses. Whenever she wanted to call it quits, her father would tell her “The Big Time” was just around the corner.   I’ve been friends with Ingrid for over twenty years and have heard many wild stories of her unconventional upbringing. The last book I read was her mother’s memoir,  Baja Journey , which offered great insight into Ingrid’s earliest days.  The Big Time  is the rest of her story.   Through letters, essays, poems, and many photographs, Ingrid shows the unique perspective of the world she was born into and how it continues to shape the person she is today. Against her father’s advice, she pursued a career as a vocalist and became a bandleader in New York City in her early t...

  "Reading Baja Journey " 2023 Kristin Fouquet I’ve been friends with Ingrid Lucia, Pearlman’s daughter, for over twenty years. Knowing of Ingrid’s unconventional upbringing, I was intrigued to gain more insight into her origin story. My chance came when I acquired Pearlman’s memoir,  Baja Journey . I opened the book a day after returning from Puerto Vallarta, the magic and mystery fresh in my mind, and was delighted that Pearlman’s expedition began in Mexico. Far from the circumstances of my recent getaway, hers began with hitchhiking through Baja in the late 1960s.   She chronicles her travels throughout Mexico, San Francisco, Las Vegas, Southwestern deserts, New York, and New Orleans. Some of these are with just David, Ingrid’s father, and others with a group of travelers. Children, including Ingrid, are born along the way. Yet, this is much more than a travelogue. The exploration of her adventure extends far beyond the locales and even beyond the lifespan of her relat...

  Last week, I visited the outstanding 1811/Kid Ory Historic House in LaPlace, Louisiana. I could not give a review of this book without also reviewing the museum because they are both entwined in my mind.  I was slightly disappointed in myself for not having read John McCusker’s  Creole Trombone: Kid Ory and the Early Years of Jazz  (University Press of Mississippi, 2012) before the trip. Yet, after that magical day at the museum, I was delighted to have my mind travel back to the experience as I read the book. McCusker has written the definitive biography on Edward “Kid” Ory. Even Ory’s autobiography (passages do appear throughout McCusker’s book) is not as reliable due to it being dictated by Ory to his second wife, who exercised her unwarranted omissions. McCusker’s tenacious research has brought much light to an early jazz pioneer. The 1811/Kid Ory Historic House is the site of the largest slave rebellion in the U.S. and the plantation where Ory was born. McCu...

  "Reading The Vagabond" Kristin Fouquet 2022      Spring felt like the time to reread  The Vagabond , a novel from one of my favorite French authors, Colette. The name of the protagonist, Renée, means reborn. This is no accident, as  The   Vagabond  is semi-autobiographical, and Colette was newly divorced from a scoundrel of a husband who claimed all of her first novels under his name. Renée, much like Colette, fled her married writing life to become a dancer and mime on the stage in music halls across France. This first book under her name alone was written with keen rebellion and a tinge of revenge.           Published in 1910,  The Vagabond  is set in a period where women had little independence. When Renée finds herself under the spell of a second love, she must face the struggle of choosing love or freedom. This choice is difficult: stay independent and free, but with the hard work of performing and to...

"Reading Strapless " Kristin Fouquet 2022              Madame X  by John Singer Sargent is one of the most famous and enduring portraits, but few are familiar with the beautiful subject, Virginie Amélie Gautreau. My interest in her began even before I learned I lived in her childhood home. In the early 1990s, I rented an apartment and then another at 927 Toulouse in the French Quarter. The building was built by her grandfather, Phillippe Avegno, and was considered one of the “earliest skyscrapers” of New Orleans. In  Strapless: John Singer Sargent and The Fall of Madame X  by Deborah Davis, the author presents a detailed gaze into Gautreau’s early life, her years as a Parisian socialite, and until her death as a recluse in 1915.   Sargent’s original painting from 1883-84,  Madame Gautreau , with her fallen strap, caused such a scandal that the artist was astounded by the reaction, and the subject was sh...

          Having read this last summer, I must confess this is a long overdue book review. Prior to acquiring this collection from Crescent City Books  in December of 2019, I had read only one short story by Alice Ruth Moore Dunbar-Nelson. It was "A Carnival Jangle" ... a poignant brief tale I was delighted to reread along with the other thirteen stories in this slim volume. Her brevity is in bountiful economy and she wrote long before the term "flash fiction" was coined to describe some of the shortest of short stories.         Her stories in The Goodness of Saint Roch  are charming in their affectionate detail but equally as significant in documenting a bygone era of New Orleans by one of her native daughters. Thank you, Second Line Press , for preserving this important work! The cover is too stunning not to mention as well.          -Kristin Fouquet 2021 "Reading The Goodness of Saint Roch"...

"Reading The Woman in Black "  ©  2019 Kristin Fouquet There is romanticism in devotion after death, especially in Hollywood. Joe DiMaggio sent roses to Marilyn Monroe’s gravesite weekly for twenty years. Rudolph Valentino had the “Lady in Black” who visited his grave annually for decades. In Erik Tarloff’s fourth novel, the deceased actor Chance Hardwick has The Woman in Black .  Tarloff’s book is a structural marvel. In The Woman in Black , Gordon Frost is a film producer, historian, and university professor. Frost claimed Chance Hardwick was the best actor of the postwar generation. His obsession with Hardwick drove him to search for those who knew the actor or at least thought they had. He interviewed forty-seven “witnesses” who were familiar with Chance Hardwick- spanning from his upbringing in the Midwest to his New York City theater days, then to his final years in Hollywood. Each interwoven account has been transcribed from a recording of the interview. On...

"Reading The Horn " copyright 2019 Kristin Fouquet In my childhood, it was customary for my parents to bring my brother and me to the French Market on Sundays to buy our weekly produce. It was on one of these occasions I heard the most amazing music. The song emitted through a radio owned by the man selling Creole tomatoes. I lingered to listen until my mother called for me. When I caught up, I asked about that music. Her reply, “Just jazz.” Despite being native to New Orleans, I wasn’t brought up in a household with jazz. It was up to me to learn the musicians and the songs- from trad jazz onward. Jazz became my favorite music. Ten years ago, at the recommendation of the much-respected Carter Monroe, I read The Horn by John Clellon Holmes. It had such a deep effect on me, I recently decided to pick it up for another read. I’m so glad I did. The Horn is considered the definitive jazz novel, so my humble opinion of it will hardly drive up sales. Yet, after rere...

"Reading Existential Labyrinths" 2019 Kristin Fouquet In Julian Gallo’s compelling novel Existential Labyrinths (Palm Frond Tea, 2018), the nameless protagonist and narrator is a writer struggling in existential crisis. He hates his job. His hot and cold relationship with a young painter named Julia is maddeningly frustrating. He becomes disillusioned with his native New York City and its denizens. His own vicious circle, his cycle of ever-questioning himself and art and its purpose, distracts him from writing his novel. The solution he fixates on is running away to Paris to retrace the steps of his literary heroes. I was reminded of two other novels while reading Existential Labyrinths . I found myself comparing the Julia in this book with the Julia in George Orwell’s 1984 . Although they have purportedly been involved for three years, the protagonist in Gallo’s novel regards his relationship with Julia as temporary, much like Orwell’s Winston views the affair ...

"Reading I'm Not Supposed to Be Here and Neither Are You " copyright 2018 Kristin Fouquet For years, I’ve read Len Kuntz’s stories and poems online but had neglected to purchase one of his books. I finally resolved this by purchasing I’m Not Supposed to Be Here and Neither Are You (Unknown Press, 2016), a brilliant collection of flash fiction stories with evocative cover art by Emily Linstrom. Flash fiction is relatively new in the realm of literature. Some believe these very short stories are closer to prose poems. Even its definition is highly debated. Although bound by word count like short stories, novellas, and novels, this criterion is unclear with flash fiction. Some claim a story must be under a 1,000 words, less than 500, fewer than 250, 100, 50… Hemingway’s six-word story, “For Sale: Baby Shoes. Never Worn.” is an example of one of the shortest. With remarkable word efficiency, Kuntz writes stellar stories. In I’m Not Supposed to Be Here and Neither...

"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...

"Reading Open A " copyright 2016 Kristin Fouquet Some believe there is a correlation between the creation of great art and suffering. The artists in Kimberly Richardson’s novel Open A must succumb to sacrifice to embrace their passions and their art. The “Dark Gift” each of these eccentric characters possesses is a creative talent entwined with madness. We view this Gothic dream through the eyes of Graydon Fayette, a master violinist who has an extraordinary relationship with his instrument. Graydon’s uncle is the luthier of his violin and a mysterious man who produces elusive wines from unusual ingredients. The Fayettes are an ancient Southern family who enjoy the privilege of a dark influence unbeknownst to normal society. While their relationships with one another do not adhere to the usual mores, they are civilized and polite in their formalities and rituals. When Graydon becomes enchanted with the beautiful, alluring Aerin, and subsequently her twin brother, he f...

I am elated my often overlooked third book, a chapbook, The Olive Stain has found a new reader. Many thanks to  Kimberly Richardson  at the Nocturnal Aesthetic for appreciating my dark side and writing this lovely review. A Stain Of Madness That Smells Sweet The Olive Stain and Other Stories is available at Amazon .  Signed copies available at Le Salon .

Kimberly Richardson offers her thoughts on my second book, Rampart & Toulouse , in this review: The Nocturnal Aesthetic: Of Rampart and Toulouse This is such a lovely present to receive. Thanks, Kimberly!

The wonderful Kimberly Richardson has some nice words for my first collection, Twenty Stories  over at The Nocturnal Aesthetic . Feeling grateful!

-a review of Kate Pilarcik's The Damp Fedora "Reading The Damp Fedora " copyright 2016 Kristin Fouquet Noir fiction evolved from the hard-boiled and crime genre fiction with origins in the 1920s, particularly the stories from Black Mask magazine. Dashiell Hammett created the suave, clever Sam Spade and the ever-charming Nick and Nora Charles. Raymond Chandler conceived tough guy, detective Philip Marlowe. In The Damp Fedora , Kate Pilarcik introduces Nelle Callahan: “ Hello there . Cop a seat. Sit a spell. They call me Nelle. Nelle Callahan. I’m a private eye with a penchant for winking trouble’s way. I can load a Luger or lead on a loser without looking over my shoulder, come the end of a coffee and doughnut day. That’s how they come to you. When you least expect it. But you knew that. You’re no flimflam or chump. You’re jake.” Nelle’s first person account eases into third person for the remainder of the “noirvella,” but her lingo, her cracking wise, n...

"Reading Discharge" copyright 2016 Kristin Fouquet Memoirs are interesting in that one must trust the writers of such to be reliable narrators. The reader must believe all the facts presented, no matter how embarrassing or potentially damaging, are true. I pondered this as I read Discharge: A Veteran’s Lessons on Outrunning the Pentagon, Moving Stolen Military Art, and Guzzling Civilian Freedom by Ames Holbrook. The story encompasses: the beginning of Lieutenant Holbrook’s discharge on a cross-country drive in a white Cadillac with his wild man friend, The Band-Aid Man; eleven years after his discharge when he is suddenly activated for deployment at probably the worse time in his personal life for such a thing; in contemporary times as he assists Band-Aid, as a partner in crime, in returning a stolen painting, while all along addressing his daughter, Sisi, directly within the pages of a book he has written primarily for her. The reader is privy to Holbrook as the man...

"Reading Karen Lillis" copyright 2014 Kristin Fouquet Perpetual Poetry: Words Inspiring Words a review of The Paul Simon Project by Karen Lillis I have a confession to make. I am not a poet.  I write fiction and I believe writing poetry is a completely different process.  I love reading good poetry, but I am in no way a poetry scholar.  These are the reasons I usually do not review poetry chapbooks.  The Paul Simon Project by Karen Lillis is only my second exception to this rule. Influenced by Simon’s words and music on the album Still Crazy After All These Years ,  Lillis duplicates the song titles for her poems in this collection. Some follow a similar  path as the subject of the song; others venture in their own direction. The album’s title song inspires a poem which mimics the melancholy and  sentimentality of the original. Yet, she pumps it up with a contemporary  edginess and gender reversal. In “M...

"Reading All Our Yesterdays " copyright 2014 Kristin Fouquet Only several pages into Erik Tarloff’s novel All Our Yesterdays , I knew I was going to adore it. Was it naïve optimism? Was the plotline already so riveting I didn’t think I’d ever be able to put it down? Maybe a little of both, but the simplest reason was because I immediately loved the protagonist. The story begins with a first person recollection of when he, Zeke, met his love, Molly, at a party in 1968. Through this flashback, the reader gets a glimpse into the decent, good guy he is and will prove to be over time. The setting is Berkeley in the late 60s and early 70s, a backdrop of rapid social change and heightened political awareness, juxtaposed with contemporary Berkeley. Because of Tarloff’s masterful construction, one is not reliant only on Zeke’s first person account, which occurs in the chapters from the past. These “then” segments shift back and forth with “now” chapters delivered in third p...