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LOUISIANA BREAKDOWN
Lousiana Breakdown, though, is complete. Almost Aristolean in its
unity, the novella possesses the beauty of language, clearness of
construction, and mythological inspiration that make great tragic
drama. Any expansion of this little masterpiece would be nothing but
bloat.
Weird's normal in the backwater town of Grail, Louisiana, and normal's
not worth mentioning. There's a molasses-slow atmosphere -- lethargy,
it is explained, would be considered upscale in Grail -- and a
pervasive sense of the mystic. This is a place of Belief that
preserves the endurance of the present and the illusion of the moment.
A bargain's been long struck between something known as the Good Gray
Man and the denizens of Grail, but that circuitous bargain is due for
its periodic renewal -- and the appearance of an unwary stranger
threatens it with breakdown.
Jack Mustaine, a songwriter/musician on the emotional run from the
west coast, suffers an automotive breakdown in Grail on the eve of St.
John's Eve. He falls almost instantly for the beautiful and strange
Vida Dumars. As Grail's Midsummer Queen, Vida is the personified
binding of the town's pact with and accommodation of the supernatural.
But Vida recognizes that Jack is more than a man and represents her
only chance to effect the final break between the town and its private
demon. (Yes, there are several breakdowns here.)
But this is, remember, a tragedy. At the end an act of perfect
self-destruction results in both the birth of poetry and the final
breakdown of, well, perhaps everything. Grail, for all its abnormality
and peculiarity is really just a microcosm of America. Shepard's
authorial juju is potent stuff and Lousiana Breakdown casts a
significant and powerful spell. -- (Review originally
appeared in Cemetery Dance #45)
Copyright © 2003 Paula Guran. All Rights Reserved. |
Stories from Lucius Shepard were few and far between in 90s and he was
sorely missed. His reappearance in the last few years is most
welcomed. Along with a reprint of his 1988 World Fantasy-winning
collection, The Jaguar Hunter (Four Walls Eight Windows), outstanding
magazine fiction (the IHG Award-winning, Nebula-nominated "Crocodile
Rock" from The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction), and anthology
entries (like "Limbo" in The Dark), Shepard also currently
has several stand-alone novellas available. Aztechs (Subterranean
Press) revisits the cyberpunkish near-future world of his Nebula
Award-winning story, "R&R" that later became part of novel Life During
Wartime. Valentine (Four Walls Eight Windows) is a haunting "love
letter." The noir Colonel Rutherford's Colt, available as an e-book
and slated for print from Subterranean, offers a
story-within-the-story with a historical slant. All three novellas
display different aspects of Shepard's remarkable talents as a writer
and all are worth reading. They are also all somewhat flawed by a
sense of incompleteness.