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Spotlight on local authors, books, and literary life:
Walker Percy, a great friend to Maple Street Book Shop, used
the backdrop of Mardi Gras in his first novel, The Moviegoer, which
won the National Book Award.
John Kennedy Toole created in A Confederacy of Dunces,
one of the most hilarious and authentic portraits of New Orleans crazies
and characters. And some Maple Street Book Shop people played lunatic
roles themselves in helping Thelma Toole, Toole's mother, get the Pulitzer
Prize-winning novel published. Also, the shop gave two parties for her.
The first (co-hosted by writer Chris Wiltz) celebrated Louisiana
State University agreeing to publish the book, and the second featured
Thelma Toole playing the piano, singing in memory of her "genius"
son, and signing copies of her deceased son's book. At the second party,
apparently everyone's attention hadn't been rapturous enough for her.
She later pronounced that a certain local author had been "cavorting
with the young people."
Native Chris Wiltz, who worked at Maple Street Book Shop,
is the creator of New Orleans private investigator Neal Rafferty, who
stars in The Killing Circle and The Emerald Lizard.
Sherwood Anderson, author of Winesburg, Ohio,
came to New Orleans in 1922 and encouraged other writers to follow. He
was partly responsible for drawing William Faulkner to the city.
Two-time Edgar-Award-winner James Lee Burke is
best known for his Cajun detective, Dave Robicheaux.
 Michael Lewis, Rhoda Faust |
In
1920, writers and intellectuals in New Orleans founded The Double
Dealer, a literary magazine that went on to publish such writers
as Ernest Hemingway, Faulkner, Robert Penn Warren, and Edmund
Wilson. Faulkner wrote a piece for The Double Dealer called "New Orleans."It includes sketches of eleven different New Orleans characters, including the priest, the beggar, the artist, and the tourist. He also wrote and set his novel Mosquitoes in New Orleans. Occasional residents and visitors to the city included Gertrude Stein, John Dos Passos, Sinclair Lewis, and Thomas Wolfe. |
 Shirley Ann Grau |
William Spratling and Faulkner created a book of caricatures of local figures titled Sherwood Anderson and Other Famous Creoles. Anderson was not amused. Richard Ford, winner of the Pulitzer
Prize for his novel Independence Day, has a home in the Garden
District with his wife, Kristina, who was the city planner for New
Orleans. |
Lillian Hellman, born in New Orleans in 1905, used her birthplace as the setting for several of her plays, including Toys in the Attic.
Galatoire's, a famous local restaurant, was the spot Faulkner
chose to hold a dinner when he received his advance for Mosquitoes.
Patty Friedmann (with the help of Maple Street Book Shop) chose
Galatoire's as her host for a party to celebrate the release of her novel
Eleanor Rushing.
Ernest Gaines, who found a wide audience after Oprah
Winfrey chose his book A Lesson Before Dying for her book club,
grew up outside of New Orleans on a plantation near New Roads, Louisiana.
Though most of his books are set in that area of the state, his characters
often travel to the city and speak of its charms. Gaines won the National
Book Critics Circle Award in 1993.
Sherwood Anderson called New Orleans "surely the
most civilized spot in America."
Valerie Martin grew up in New Orleans and set many of
her books here, including Set in Motion, Alexandra, and
The Great Divorce. In A Recent Martyr, a plague of rats
takes over the city.
 Valerie Martin, Chris Wiltz |
New Orleans native Hamilton
Basso, author of Relics and Angels and Cinnamon
Seed, studied law at Tulane University, but dropped out before
receiving his degree. Charles Dufour, local historian and writer,
claimed that he and Basso were both expelled. Truman Capote, who was born in New Orleans in 1924, created the non-fiction novel when he wrote In Cold Blood. |
Julie Smith won the Edgar Award in 1991 for New Orleans
Mourning.
One of the city's favorite sons, Tom Dent, a poet and the author
of Southern Journey, lived and worked in New Orleans. Recently
deceased, he is missed and loved by many.
Audubon Zoo serves as the setting for much of The Great Divorce
by Valerie Martin.
 Walker Percy |
 Nancy Lemann |
Shelton Le Fleur falls from a tree in Audubon Park and his life is radically
altered in John Gregory Brown's The Wrecked, Blessed Body of
Shelton Le Fleur. The Ponchartrain Bridge, the longest bridge in the
country, collapses in the first scene of Brown's first book, Decorations
in a Ruined Cemetery.
"Don't you just love these long, rainy afternoons in New Orleans
when an hour isn't an hour--but a little piece of eternity dropped into
your hands--and who knows what to do with it?" --A Streetcar Named
Desire, Tennessee Williams
Shirley Ann Grau, who has lived in and around New Orleans
most of her life, won the Pulitzer Prize in 1965 (at 35 years old--making
her the youngest woman to win the prize) for her novel The Keepers
of the House.
Sheila Bosworth, author of Almost Innocent and
Slow Poison, was born in New Orleans. Walker Percy called
Almost Innocent "a lovely achievement, a superior one."
| Ellen Gilchrist
named one of her main characters and her book Rhoda for the
owner of Maple Street Book Shop, Rhoda K. Faust. Miller Williams, who was chosen to read a poem at Bill Clinton's second inauguration, founded The New Orleans Review at Loyola University. Berthe Amoss, author of many children's books including It's Not Your Birthday and Tom in the Middle, was born and lives in New Orleans. Native Brenda Marie Osbey won the American Book Award for her collection of poetry All Saints. "Maple Street Book Shop . . . has served for almost thirty years as the vital literary center of modern New Orleans. One day, perhaps some enterprising graduate student will find its history worthy of a dissertation." --Earl N. Harbert, Tulane University professor in the sixties (excerpted from a review of Louisiana Women Writers by Dorothy H. Brown and Barbara C. Ewell in "Studies in American Fiction" Northeastern University, Spring 1994) |
 Rhoda Faust, Ellen Gilchrist |