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The Coffee Shop Chronicles of New Orleans - Part 1
"Here is a guy who can paint accurately while he suffers--a talented bohemian, in other words. A worthy addition to your growing New Orleans shelf." --Andrei Codrescu
The agnostic, ten-years-sober son of a Baptist minister, B. Sammy Singleton has an opinion about everything. A transplant from New York City by way of Paducah, Kentucky, and New Haven, Connecticut, he also has a guidebook to New Orleans coffee shops to write. But when his best friend, Catfish--reluctant heir to the Beaucoeur sugarcane fortune and a one-time antiques dealer--is arrested for grave robbing and then goes missing, events spin out of control.
Narrated by Sammy in the days before a hurricane changes the city forever, The Coffee Shop Chronicles of New Part 1 blends satire, mystery, and historical fiction as it explores the "sacrament" of coffee drinking, living sober, New Orleans' civil rights history, and the legacy of slavery and Jim Crow in America. The French Quarter and Faubourgs Marigny and Tremé inhabit the novel every bit as vividly as the offbeat characters Sammy encounters in his adopted hometown, which, as Sammy says, "took him in, no questions asked."
Though not always the most tuned in when it comes to himself, Sammy is a keen observer who takes readers on an antic journey that is often hilarious. But as Sammy becomes increasingly anxious about Catfish's well-being, he begins to excavate buried truths about himself and about what the tragedy-bound Catfish calls the American Holocaust. Whether you call New Orleans home or have never even visited, with B. Sammy Singleton as your guide you'll gain intimate new insights into a city many truly love, but few truly know.
The agnostic, ten-years-sober son of a Baptist minister, B. Sammy Singleton has an opinion about everything. A transplant from New York City by way of Paducah, Kentucky, and New Haven, Connecticut, he also has a guidebook to New Orleans coffee shops to write. But when his best friend, Catfish--reluctant heir to the Beaucoeur sugarcane fortune and a one-time antiques dealer--is arrested for grave robbing and then goes missing, events spin out of control.
Narrated by Sammy in the days before a hurricane changes the city forever, The Coffee Shop Chronicles of New Part 1 blends satire, mystery, and historical fiction as it explores the "sacrament" of coffee drinking, living sober, New Orleans' civil rights history, and the legacy of slavery and Jim Crow in America. The French Quarter and Faubourgs Marigny and Tremé inhabit the novel every bit as vividly as the offbeat characters Sammy encounters in his adopted hometown, which, as Sammy says, "took him in, no questions asked."
Though not always the most tuned in when it comes to himself, Sammy is a keen observer who takes readers on an antic journey that is often hilarious. But as Sammy becomes increasingly anxious about Catfish's well-being, he begins to excavate buried truths about himself and about what the tragedy-bound Catfish calls the American Holocaust. Whether you call New Orleans home or have never even visited, with B. Sammy Singleton as your guide you'll gain intimate new insights into a city many truly love, but few truly know.
- GenresFiction
325 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 2009
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August 17, 2010
07/02/2010 - Reviewed by Penne Laubenthal
B. Sammy Singleton, in a manner that recalls the opening lines of The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, introduces himself in the first line of the The Coffee Shop Chronicles of New Orleans with a single revelatory sentence that is the key to his character: "Sitting in CC's all by myself, as long as you don't count the other people, sipping a double cap I don't want ever to end and committed to getting started on this book (okay guidebook) with no further ado."
Sammy has been given a generous advance by his publisher (Winnie Hargreaves of Lucky Dog Press) to write a guidebook to the coffee houses of New Orleans. The obvious distinction between Huckleberry Finn and B. Sammy Singleton is that Huck is 14 and Sammy is 45; however, neither of them has previously undertaken the writing of a book and Sammy is finding the task particularly onerous. Just as Huck Finn declares at the conclusion of Twain's novel "if I had knowed what a trouble it was to make a book, I wouldn't a tackled it," Sammy is wishing he had not already spent his first advance as now, like it or not, he must produce.
Another similarity between Huck and Sammy is that, despite the vast difference in their ages and the space of more than a century between them, both Huck and Sammy find themselves forced to confront a world where injustice, particularly racial injustice, abounds and both characters discover, as Huck Finn observes, "Human beings can be mighty cruel to one another."
Sammy, ten years sober when the book begins, has fled his life in the city of New York some six years before and taken refuge in New Orleans where he plans on losing himself. Once addicted to alcohol, Sammy is now addicted to coffee, double cappuccinos to be exact. He is a fixture in all the coffee shops of the French Quarter and Faubourg Marigny. However, Sammy frequents the coffee shops not, as the great lexicographer Samuel Johnson did, in order to engage society but to escape it. Due to his "anorexic social skills," Sammy seeks peace and solitude in the coffee shops (note he calls them coffee shops not coffee houses—for Sammy there is a clear difference) where he can indulge his natural proclivity towards isolation, but isolation is not to be Sammy's fate.
The Coffee Shop Chronicles begins on the morning of August 16, 2005, and, with the exception of a three chapter flashback (Chapters 9-11) to 1998, the year Sammy arrived in the Big Easy, concludes in the wee hours of the morning on August 26, 2005—just three days before Hurricane Katrina. Sammy is a compulsive journaler and he begins the journal in an effort to discipline himself and organize his thoughts about the book he is supposed to be writing. It is within the pages of this journal that the novel takes place. What begins for Sammy as a self-indulgent and somewhat haphazard effort to structure his life metamorphoses into a journey into history and subsequently deep into himself.
When the novel or rather journal begins, Sammy has just been through a harrowing experience that he desperately wants to put behind him. His best friend Catfish, reluctant heir to the Beaucouer sugarcane fortune, has been arrested for “grave robbing”—an outlandish charge as Catfish could afford to buy several graveyards and is not even interested in possessions but rather in making restitution for having inherited a tainted fortune. Even so, Catfish has just spent the weekend in jail, and after picking him up (the day before the narration begins) Sammy is determined to wrest his life back to normalcy by throwing himself into the book. This is not to be, however, because as he gradually comes to realize over the course of the next few days, Catfish is gone.
In quest of Catfish, Sammy (much like James Joyce's Leopold Bloom in Dublin) wanders the streets of New Orleans from the Faubourg Tremé to the river's edge. During his strangeodyssey, Sammy encounters the diverse and unorthodox characters that populate the novel. These characters, vividly drawn,convincingly portrayed, and as exotic and complex as a savory jambalaya, find their way into our hearts.
Sammy, who is given to taking other people's inventory (a big no-no in AA), desperately wants to do the right thing. He knows he has been less than a good friend to Catfish, who befriended him when he first came to New Orleans, but he just cannot seem, despite self-recrimination and resolutions to reform, to do right by him. Although Sammy embraces and celebrates the diversity of the city that shelters him and has no problem with his own sexual orientation, he does have a problem with Sammy—who just keeps on running away.
When Catfish disappears, Sammy is forced to look at his own life and he is not pleased with what he sees. As he becomes increasingly determined to track down his friend, he is catapulted into the dark and bloodstained past of Catfish’s slave-holding forbears and his life is forever changed. He discovers that he, too, must bear responsibility for what Catfish refers to as "the American Holocaust" He also finds himself with no choice but to consider the grim possibility that "on more than one occasion in Catfish’s past, it was in the very process of trying to unravel himself from that infinitely malignant thread that, in that form of despair most desperate, he alternately wove it into a noose."
What this discovery will mean for Sammy and what has become of Catfish Beaucoeur will not emerge until Parts 2 and 3 of The Coffee Shop Chronicles are released. The entirety of Part 2 takes on a single day (Friday August 26), whereas Part 3 unfolds over a two-month period in Paducah, KY (Lummis’ own hometown), where Sammy and his housemates reside during their post-hurricane exile from New Orleans.These subsequent parts of the serial novel will be released in the fall and winter of this year, respectively.
David Lummis is a lively storyteller (and by extension so is Sammy) and Chronicles is liberally dusted, like one of the beignets at Café du Monde that Sammy so adores, with Sammy's wry and witty observations and delightful digressions on such topics as children (why not to have them—thinkW. C. Fields), Starbucks Coffee (which he likes), Martha Stewart (whom he also likes and credits, along with Starbucks, with making “our collective American life immeasurably better”), as well as the crisis of confronting midlife (which he hates).
One of the funniest passages in the novel, or at least one with which I totally identified, is the second paragraph of Chapter 2 "I'm Not Saying I'd Fall Apart." Here Sammy says that the big 4-0 " blindsided him completely” and that "Taking the cue like a Nazi soldier my body immediately began to fall apart, behaving like a stranger who for no apparent reason had it in for me. Minor aches and pains once barely noticeable or easily dismissed were now each a painful foreshadowing of a future full of far greater corporeal woes, most of them undiagnosable and impervious to bulk orders of highly toxic prescription medications."
Lummis' novel took me back a couple of decades to another first novel that is one of my all time favorites and is also set in New Orleans—A Confederacy of Dunces by John Kennedy Toole. The protagonists of each book, B. Sammy Singleton and Ignatius J. Riley, share a sense of indignation at the injustices of the world, but there is a huge difference between them. Sammy has a powerful conscience. Ignatius J. Riley has none.
While reading Chronicles I was also reminded of Thomas Wolfe's Look Homeward, Angel.Altamont (Asheville, NC) is not New Orleans and Eugene Gant is not B. Sammy Singleton, but both characters are possessed of a common disillusionment and an urge to make things right in the world. Ironically, You Can't Go Home Again by Thomas Wolfe is one of the books Sammy finds in Catfish's abandoned library with the long passage which begins "I believe we are lost here in America" underlined.
Like most first novels, Chronicles is quasi-autobiographical, a fact Lummis readily acknowledges. The history and the places are real, only the characters are imaginary. In addition to the colorful characters that populate the book, the city herself emerges as a character, as does River House, a beautifully restored Creole-plantation-style home in the Marigny district where Lummis lives with his life partner Csaba Lukacs. Lummis's tenderand affectionate descriptions of New Orleans, his "Paris of the South," evoke Pat Conroy's lush and loving portrayal of coastal South Carolina. Just asConroy's South of Broad is a paean to Charleston. so is Lummis's Chronicles a love song to New Orleans. Alternately funny, painful, entertaining, and always unflinchingly honest, The Coffee Shop Chronicles of New Orleans is a must read.
A 21st century Leopold—not Joyce's Leopold Bloom or Conroy's Leopold Bloom King but the Leopold of the 2001 movie, Kate and Leopold—once said "...without the culinary arts, the crudeness of reality would be unbearable" (a variation on a statement by G.B. Shaw about the necessity of art). In yet another version, B. Sammy Singleton might say "without a double cappuccino the crudeness of reality would be unbearable."
So, order this book, head to your favorite neighborhood coffee shop, order up a double cap, kick back, and enjoy the ride.
B. Sammy Singleton, in a manner that recalls the opening lines of The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, introduces himself in the first line of the The Coffee Shop Chronicles of New Orleans with a single revelatory sentence that is the key to his character: "Sitting in CC's all by myself, as long as you don't count the other people, sipping a double cap I don't want ever to end and committed to getting started on this book (okay guidebook) with no further ado."
Sammy has been given a generous advance by his publisher (Winnie Hargreaves of Lucky Dog Press) to write a guidebook to the coffee houses of New Orleans. The obvious distinction between Huckleberry Finn and B. Sammy Singleton is that Huck is 14 and Sammy is 45; however, neither of them has previously undertaken the writing of a book and Sammy is finding the task particularly onerous. Just as Huck Finn declares at the conclusion of Twain's novel "if I had knowed what a trouble it was to make a book, I wouldn't a tackled it," Sammy is wishing he had not already spent his first advance as now, like it or not, he must produce.
Another similarity between Huck and Sammy is that, despite the vast difference in their ages and the space of more than a century between them, both Huck and Sammy find themselves forced to confront a world where injustice, particularly racial injustice, abounds and both characters discover, as Huck Finn observes, "Human beings can be mighty cruel to one another."
Sammy, ten years sober when the book begins, has fled his life in the city of New York some six years before and taken refuge in New Orleans where he plans on losing himself. Once addicted to alcohol, Sammy is now addicted to coffee, double cappuccinos to be exact. He is a fixture in all the coffee shops of the French Quarter and Faubourg Marigny. However, Sammy frequents the coffee shops not, as the great lexicographer Samuel Johnson did, in order to engage society but to escape it. Due to his "anorexic social skills," Sammy seeks peace and solitude in the coffee shops (note he calls them coffee shops not coffee houses—for Sammy there is a clear difference) where he can indulge his natural proclivity towards isolation, but isolation is not to be Sammy's fate.
The Coffee Shop Chronicles begins on the morning of August 16, 2005, and, with the exception of a three chapter flashback (Chapters 9-11) to 1998, the year Sammy arrived in the Big Easy, concludes in the wee hours of the morning on August 26, 2005—just three days before Hurricane Katrina. Sammy is a compulsive journaler and he begins the journal in an effort to discipline himself and organize his thoughts about the book he is supposed to be writing. It is within the pages of this journal that the novel takes place. What begins for Sammy as a self-indulgent and somewhat haphazard effort to structure his life metamorphoses into a journey into history and subsequently deep into himself.
When the novel or rather journal begins, Sammy has just been through a harrowing experience that he desperately wants to put behind him. His best friend Catfish, reluctant heir to the Beaucouer sugarcane fortune, has been arrested for “grave robbing”—an outlandish charge as Catfish could afford to buy several graveyards and is not even interested in possessions but rather in making restitution for having inherited a tainted fortune. Even so, Catfish has just spent the weekend in jail, and after picking him up (the day before the narration begins) Sammy is determined to wrest his life back to normalcy by throwing himself into the book. This is not to be, however, because as he gradually comes to realize over the course of the next few days, Catfish is gone.
In quest of Catfish, Sammy (much like James Joyce's Leopold Bloom in Dublin) wanders the streets of New Orleans from the Faubourg Tremé to the river's edge. During his strangeodyssey, Sammy encounters the diverse and unorthodox characters that populate the novel. These characters, vividly drawn,convincingly portrayed, and as exotic and complex as a savory jambalaya, find their way into our hearts.
Sammy, who is given to taking other people's inventory (a big no-no in AA), desperately wants to do the right thing. He knows he has been less than a good friend to Catfish, who befriended him when he first came to New Orleans, but he just cannot seem, despite self-recrimination and resolutions to reform, to do right by him. Although Sammy embraces and celebrates the diversity of the city that shelters him and has no problem with his own sexual orientation, he does have a problem with Sammy—who just keeps on running away.
When Catfish disappears, Sammy is forced to look at his own life and he is not pleased with what he sees. As he becomes increasingly determined to track down his friend, he is catapulted into the dark and bloodstained past of Catfish’s slave-holding forbears and his life is forever changed. He discovers that he, too, must bear responsibility for what Catfish refers to as "the American Holocaust" He also finds himself with no choice but to consider the grim possibility that "on more than one occasion in Catfish’s past, it was in the very process of trying to unravel himself from that infinitely malignant thread that, in that form of despair most desperate, he alternately wove it into a noose."
What this discovery will mean for Sammy and what has become of Catfish Beaucoeur will not emerge until Parts 2 and 3 of The Coffee Shop Chronicles are released. The entirety of Part 2 takes on a single day (Friday August 26), whereas Part 3 unfolds over a two-month period in Paducah, KY (Lummis’ own hometown), where Sammy and his housemates reside during their post-hurricane exile from New Orleans.These subsequent parts of the serial novel will be released in the fall and winter of this year, respectively.
David Lummis is a lively storyteller (and by extension so is Sammy) and Chronicles is liberally dusted, like one of the beignets at Café du Monde that Sammy so adores, with Sammy's wry and witty observations and delightful digressions on such topics as children (why not to have them—thinkW. C. Fields), Starbucks Coffee (which he likes), Martha Stewart (whom he also likes and credits, along with Starbucks, with making “our collective American life immeasurably better”), as well as the crisis of confronting midlife (which he hates).
One of the funniest passages in the novel, or at least one with which I totally identified, is the second paragraph of Chapter 2 "I'm Not Saying I'd Fall Apart." Here Sammy says that the big 4-0 " blindsided him completely” and that "Taking the cue like a Nazi soldier my body immediately began to fall apart, behaving like a stranger who for no apparent reason had it in for me. Minor aches and pains once barely noticeable or easily dismissed were now each a painful foreshadowing of a future full of far greater corporeal woes, most of them undiagnosable and impervious to bulk orders of highly toxic prescription medications."
Lummis' novel took me back a couple of decades to another first novel that is one of my all time favorites and is also set in New Orleans—A Confederacy of Dunces by John Kennedy Toole. The protagonists of each book, B. Sammy Singleton and Ignatius J. Riley, share a sense of indignation at the injustices of the world, but there is a huge difference between them. Sammy has a powerful conscience. Ignatius J. Riley has none.
While reading Chronicles I was also reminded of Thomas Wolfe's Look Homeward, Angel.Altamont (Asheville, NC) is not New Orleans and Eugene Gant is not B. Sammy Singleton, but both characters are possessed of a common disillusionment and an urge to make things right in the world. Ironically, You Can't Go Home Again by Thomas Wolfe is one of the books Sammy finds in Catfish's abandoned library with the long passage which begins "I believe we are lost here in America" underlined.
Like most first novels, Chronicles is quasi-autobiographical, a fact Lummis readily acknowledges. The history and the places are real, only the characters are imaginary. In addition to the colorful characters that populate the book, the city herself emerges as a character, as does River House, a beautifully restored Creole-plantation-style home in the Marigny district where Lummis lives with his life partner Csaba Lukacs. Lummis's tenderand affectionate descriptions of New Orleans, his "Paris of the South," evoke Pat Conroy's lush and loving portrayal of coastal South Carolina. Just asConroy's South of Broad is a paean to Charleston. so is Lummis's Chronicles a love song to New Orleans. Alternately funny, painful, entertaining, and always unflinchingly honest, The Coffee Shop Chronicles of New Orleans is a must read.
A 21st century Leopold—not Joyce's Leopold Bloom or Conroy's Leopold Bloom King but the Leopold of the 2001 movie, Kate and Leopold—once said "...without the culinary arts, the crudeness of reality would be unbearable" (a variation on a statement by G.B. Shaw about the necessity of art). In yet another version, B. Sammy Singleton might say "without a double cappuccino the crudeness of reality would be unbearable."
So, order this book, head to your favorite neighborhood coffee shop, order up a double cap, kick back, and enjoy the ride.
February 18, 2011
Read this book if you love New Orleans or intend to. It's knowing, observant, passionately felt, and beautifully written:
"As usual Jonah looked like he'd wriggled out of a rabbit hole, which as far as I knew he had since he'd been 'temporarily address-less' for as long as I'd known him. Despite the temperature he was sporting a stocking cap pulled down to his eyebrows and several layers of clothing encrusted with dried mud. Although he was about the size of a skinny seven-year-old, he could have been anywhere from fifty to eighty, the only clear signals being the yellowing whites of his eyes and borderline toothlessness. Personal longevity aside, he'd beeen a fixture of the French Quarter for as long as anyone could remember, like Ruthie the Duck Lady or Jude Acers--Chess Expert, except that his range was not limited to the Vieux Carre. Rather, he was equally likely to be found pedaling through the Marigny or Treme or Faubourg St. John--wherever and whenever his "duty" took him--a duty that consisted of salvaging "treasures" that would otherwise be "gone for good" from the thousands of derelict 19th century homes all over the city. Sometimes he came up with nothing more than a few marbles or doll appendages or vintage pop bottles dug out from under a house, while other times his pickings were more substantial--a jeweled stained-glass window without many cracks, or a set of hand-hewn cypress brackets, or a courtyard-sized cache of marble bricks. Regardless of street value each item was personally excavated and delivered by Jonah, with most of his goods going to the junktique dealers along Decatur, where he went by several names. The last time I'd seen him he'd been weaving down Elysian Fields alongside Washington Square Park, a fluted porch column suspended across his bicycle in a balancing act worthy of any Cirque de Soleil."
"As usual Jonah looked like he'd wriggled out of a rabbit hole, which as far as I knew he had since he'd been 'temporarily address-less' for as long as I'd known him. Despite the temperature he was sporting a stocking cap pulled down to his eyebrows and several layers of clothing encrusted with dried mud. Although he was about the size of a skinny seven-year-old, he could have been anywhere from fifty to eighty, the only clear signals being the yellowing whites of his eyes and borderline toothlessness. Personal longevity aside, he'd beeen a fixture of the French Quarter for as long as anyone could remember, like Ruthie the Duck Lady or Jude Acers--Chess Expert, except that his range was not limited to the Vieux Carre. Rather, he was equally likely to be found pedaling through the Marigny or Treme or Faubourg St. John--wherever and whenever his "duty" took him--a duty that consisted of salvaging "treasures" that would otherwise be "gone for good" from the thousands of derelict 19th century homes all over the city. Sometimes he came up with nothing more than a few marbles or doll appendages or vintage pop bottles dug out from under a house, while other times his pickings were more substantial--a jeweled stained-glass window without many cracks, or a set of hand-hewn cypress brackets, or a courtyard-sized cache of marble bricks. Regardless of street value each item was personally excavated and delivered by Jonah, with most of his goods going to the junktique dealers along Decatur, where he went by several names. The last time I'd seen him he'd been weaving down Elysian Fields alongside Washington Square Park, a fluted porch column suspended across his bicycle in a balancing act worthy of any Cirque de Soleil."
March 3, 2011
07/18/2010 - Facebook Notes of poet and author Diann Blakely
"I need some, even though it's past even MY bedtime. Coffee, I mean. And a real book, one I can hold in my hands and cherish and savor. And despite my screeds and descants and laments and furies, I remain proud to write for SWAMPLAND, where my colleague, Penne J. Lebenthal, is the first to review what gives every appearance of being a beacon of light in this moment of BP-produced darkness, which has besmirched and besmutted my homelands and is threatening the Atlantic estuary upon which I live in south coastal Georgia."
"I need some, even though it's past even MY bedtime. Coffee, I mean. And a real book, one I can hold in my hands and cherish and savor. And despite my screeds and descants and laments and furies, I remain proud to write for SWAMPLAND, where my colleague, Penne J. Lebenthal, is the first to review what gives every appearance of being a beacon of light in this moment of BP-produced darkness, which has besmirched and besmutted my homelands and is threatening the Atlantic estuary upon which I live in south coastal Georgia."
March 1, 2011
Just finished "The Coffee Shop Chronicles of New Orleans" this morning. A very good read! The characters are believable (especially if you've ever spent some time in New Orleans). Some of the descriptions of neighborhoods, coffee shops, etc took me right back to NOLA. I would have loved this book just because of these things but what truly got me was the last Chapter. Still thinking about it. Glad I own this book because I'll definitely reread. Hope Part 2 is on the way.
January 28, 2011
Much like converts are often more zealous for their newfound religions, transplants tend to see their adopted cities with fresh eyes. Reading The Coffee Shop Chronicles of New Orleans. Part 1 had this native experiencing a renewed love for her city.
The narrator, B. Sammy Singleton, has relocated to New Orleans with much eagerness. He is opinionated, sober, and sensitive while offering his descriptions of the city and her denizens with critical, comical detail. Amongst constant distraction, he attempts to write a local coffee shop guide, while wondering the whereabouts of his close friend, who has a penchant for disappearing.
Most of the book had me laughing, a thanks to Lummis’ great wit, or amazed at his local historical, architectural, and pop cultural references. However, the final chapter’s poignancy left me in tears. Home is a relative concept, but he reminds us we are never too far away from home to accept the responsibility of our past as a human collective, no matter how uncomfortable.
While there are numerous local inside jokes, this novel is universal in appeal. Although I dwell uptown and Mr. Lummis is downtown, I am proud to call him a neighbor. I am happy to report this is but the first book in a three part series and I have two more in my future.
The narrator, B. Sammy Singleton, has relocated to New Orleans with much eagerness. He is opinionated, sober, and sensitive while offering his descriptions of the city and her denizens with critical, comical detail. Amongst constant distraction, he attempts to write a local coffee shop guide, while wondering the whereabouts of his close friend, who has a penchant for disappearing.
Most of the book had me laughing, a thanks to Lummis’ great wit, or amazed at his local historical, architectural, and pop cultural references. However, the final chapter’s poignancy left me in tears. Home is a relative concept, but he reminds us we are never too far away from home to accept the responsibility of our past as a human collective, no matter how uncomfortable.
While there are numerous local inside jokes, this novel is universal in appeal. Although I dwell uptown and Mr. Lummis is downtown, I am proud to call him a neighbor. I am happy to report this is but the first book in a three part series and I have two more in my future.
March 28, 2011
Wow! Fasten your seat belts, it’s going to be a bumpy ride. As they say. What an incredible journey of this young man. I still can’t believe where he has taken me. When I started reading this book I figured it will be about New Orleans, funny characters, the life in the Big Easy. Well. Yes. The book is about New Orleans, but not the kind of New Orleans I have ever heard of. I am humbled, how ignorant I was. Being a recovering alcoholic (sober over 20 years) I had the Serenity Prayer came to mind after closing the book: “God. Grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference.” Thank you Mr. Lummis.
January 30, 2012
Okay, it's my book, so I'm a bit biased...but we have been in Amazon's Historical Fiction Top 10 by Reader Review for several months now.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/top-rated/di...
Part 2 is coming soon -- spring 2012, and I'm now working with Sarah Flynn, who co-authored "Voices of Freedom" and worked with Pat Conroy on "Prince of Tides." Here's what Pat had to say about Sarah:
"[Sarah] is part of the soul and texture and tone of the book [and] edited the book with grace and passion . . ."
Please stay tuned.
-DL
http://www.amazon.com/gp/top-rated/di...
Part 2 is coming soon -- spring 2012, and I'm now working with Sarah Flynn, who co-authored "Voices of Freedom" and worked with Pat Conroy on "Prince of Tides." Here's what Pat had to say about Sarah:
"[Sarah] is part of the soul and texture and tone of the book [and] edited the book with grace and passion . . ."
Please stay tuned.
-DL
Read
September 22, 2011This book has an amusing anecdote as regards my life as a book reviewer: I came upon it and thought I had made a unique discovery! a terrific new read of which no one had ever heard! Consequently, I wrote immediately to one of my editors at the time of the publication of Lummis's first work and asked to review the title. "Sorry," I was told. Someone else had been more quick-witted--or at least a faster reader--than myself: one of favorite and best colleagues, Penne J. Lebenthal! So credit here must go partly to her--http://swampland.com/posts/view/title... it should be noticed that I'm reposting this notice at yet another dark time in the South: I first read the book immediately after the explosion of the Deepwater Horizon, and I pulled Lummis' book from my shelves and poured a big mug of coffee tonight shortly after learning of the execution of Troy Anthony Davis in Savannah, which is often called, and with good reason, the New Orleans of the Atlantic seaboard.
April 18, 2011
This book is not for everybody.
Why? My take on the reading habits of the American public is that they read their books the same way they want their food. Fast, McDonalds style.
It has be cheap or free, so one can waste it or just consume it in seconds.
I has to taste the same no matter where one goes and buys it.
It satisfies for the moment, but one won't remember the taste until one takes another bite.
Not nutritious at all, filled with everything, but real "food". No surprises, no challenges, nothing that can upset the medicated balance.
So, my point is, if you belong to this group, this book is not for you. This is not a Big Mac.
With this book, you have to "accept uncertainty", "welcome change", and "embrace the unknown". I know it's not easy. One always wants to know what's next.
This story is a journey. Something that can't be predicted. One has to go along with Sammy in order to experience the wonder of getting lost and finding yourself. Scary? Yes.
The real way of reading a book.
Why? My take on the reading habits of the American public is that they read their books the same way they want their food. Fast, McDonalds style.
It has be cheap or free, so one can waste it or just consume it in seconds.
I has to taste the same no matter where one goes and buys it.
It satisfies for the moment, but one won't remember the taste until one takes another bite.
Not nutritious at all, filled with everything, but real "food". No surprises, no challenges, nothing that can upset the medicated balance.
So, my point is, if you belong to this group, this book is not for you. This is not a Big Mac.
With this book, you have to "accept uncertainty", "welcome change", and "embrace the unknown". I know it's not easy. One always wants to know what's next.
This story is a journey. Something that can't be predicted. One has to go along with Sammy in order to experience the wonder of getting lost and finding yourself. Scary? Yes.
The real way of reading a book.
April 6, 2011
Won this as a Goodreads giveaway. Love the first page already! Mellifluously Mixed Metaphors!
Wow, just finished. I gave it an average of 3. Some of it I just loved! He has a wacky sense of humor that I identify with. I never quite knew where we were going on this journey. If you think it's about meandering through coffee shops, you are in for a surprise. it ends on a very serious note of slavery in Louisiana. You must have a strong stomach because some of it is so sickening. I was aware of some of the atrocities of slavery but not to that extent.
I enjoyed sightseeing in New Orleans and would love to visit some day.
I did not appreciate the homosexual aspect, I'm not against gays but I am not interested in what goes on in the bedroom. Same with heterosexual relationships. Keep your clothes on please! It adds nothing to the story.
Wow, just finished. I gave it an average of 3. Some of it I just loved! He has a wacky sense of humor that I identify with. I never quite knew where we were going on this journey. If you think it's about meandering through coffee shops, you are in for a surprise. it ends on a very serious note of slavery in Louisiana. You must have a strong stomach because some of it is so sickening. I was aware of some of the atrocities of slavery but not to that extent.
I enjoyed sightseeing in New Orleans and would love to visit some day.
I did not appreciate the homosexual aspect, I'm not against gays but I am not interested in what goes on in the bedroom. Same with heterosexual relationships. Keep your clothes on please! It adds nothing to the story.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
April 7, 2011
This was a Goodreads win for me. I found the history in this book to be very well written and put in a way which held my attention for the second half of the book.
This is not the genre I would typically read and was expecting something entirely different. The first half was a struggle for me because I was distracted every time the character would get distracted and had a hard time following his tangents.
I wonder if it would have held my attention for the second half of the book to come first, or to begin the book at that point?
I don't think I've ever seen New Orleans depicted in such a way. This definitely throws new light on what I have heard of the city. It is interesting to get a different perspective.
This is not the genre I would typically read and was expecting something entirely different. The first half was a struggle for me because I was distracted every time the character would get distracted and had a hard time following his tangents.
I wonder if it would have held my attention for the second half of the book to come first, or to begin the book at that point?
I don't think I've ever seen New Orleans depicted in such a way. This definitely throws new light on what I have heard of the city. It is interesting to get a different perspective.
May 1, 2011
This book was a GoodReads giveaway win for me. Mr. Lummis held my attention throughtout the writing of the book and I really felt I developed a relationship with each of the characters through Lummis' description of their past and current lifestyles and dilemmas. The last chapter was profound for me and Catfish's poem sheds some light on where Catfish is at mentally but still leaves the reader with questions about him. I can't wait to read part 2 of this series.
April 1, 2011
I want to finish this book but I'm struggling. So many extra facts and details are thrown into the story that I'm losing interest in the main story. The writing is colorful and descriptive, meant to impress but its tiresome.
update: I found the second half of the book to be much stronger and the story telling to be more straight forward. I wish the second half of the story was told first.
update: I found the second half of the book to be much stronger and the story telling to be more straight forward. I wish the second half of the story was told first.
May 4, 2011
I won this book through the Goodreads giveaways, and was so excited to read it! I have a love affair with New Orleans, and, though I've only had a short time there in comparison to many others, I like to think of myself as knowing a bit more about the city than others would. Any opportunity I have to learn new things about it, I take, and there's a lot of information about NOLA in my head. So when I started reading this book, which is termed a novel, I was a little bit confused. I knew that some of the information being given was fact, while other parts were obviously fiction. Normally that's not a problem when reading a novel - a lot of writers blend fact and fiction all of the time. I didn't feel as though the transitions were as seamless as they could have been though. It was more of story, throw some facts in to back up my fiction, more story, facts, story, etc. I will say that the descriptions of the locations took me back and placed me right into those areas of the city that I loved so much. And for that, I enjoyed this book. The spirit of New Orleans is here, but I believe the writing needs to be tightened up just a bit more, to make it more entertaining and enjoyable. I look forward to reading the next two volumes (for one, as of yet, we haven't heard a thing about Katrina coming, and I can't figure out why Sammy wouldn't even be questioning whether he should stay or not - it's clearly in the same time period, and yet, no mention other than "Storm's a comin."), although I'm not sure how I'll get my hands on them, being in Utah. I would like to see this book published on a national scale, but as I said, it needs some tightening up.
April 17, 2011
Coffee Shop Chronicles is the saga of B. Sammy Singleton, the gay, agnostic, eight-years-sober son of a preacher man who came to New Orleans from New York looking to become a real writer. The first person he meets is Catfish, who runs a shop that sells architectural salvage and rehabilitates low-income housing. Catfish has recently been sprung from jail, accused of tomb desecration; when he promptly disappears, Sammy sets out to find him. Along the way, he learns that Catfish's family is old New Orleans, and their fortune was built on the backs of slaves. As Sammy learns more about what he begins to call the American Holocaust, he finds out more than he ever wanted to know about Catfish, and more to the point, how a person might hate his family name so much that he might consider irreversible alternatives to separate himself from his history.
Coffee Shop Chronicles is not without its flaws. It's too long, for one thing; at least seventy pages too long, and probably more than that. It shifts back and forth in time in a way that made me dizzy and didn't really tackle the meat of its subject until the very end. But when it got there, it really got there, and packed most of its emotion into the last forty pages in a way that can't be described as other than gut-wrenching. I'm very much looking forward to Part Two, and it wouldn't surprise me at all if this is one of those Hunger Games Trilogy type deals where Part Two's going to end on some massive cliffhanger that practically begs to have Part Three already purchased and in hand. So go check it out.
Coffee Shop Chronicles is not without its flaws. It's too long, for one thing; at least seventy pages too long, and probably more than that. It shifts back and forth in time in a way that made me dizzy and didn't really tackle the meat of its subject until the very end. But when it got there, it really got there, and packed most of its emotion into the last forty pages in a way that can't be described as other than gut-wrenching. I'm very much looking forward to Part Two, and it wouldn't surprise me at all if this is one of those Hunger Games Trilogy type deals where Part Two's going to end on some massive cliffhanger that practically begs to have Part Three already purchased and in hand. So go check it out.
April 11, 2011
I won a free copy of this book through Goodreads First Reads giveaway!
This novel confused me. There are several different writing styles in the beginning chapters and the overall character development (particularly of the book’s narrator, B. Sammy Singleton) was jagged. I’m not sure the author was clear on the voice he wanted to use; at times funny and biting, other times more serious and historical…which would have been okay, but it didn’t mesh well in this case.
The novel seemed to really begin with the chapter entitled Creole Heart - that's where I suspect the author began writing when he developed an idea for a book, but then somehow things morphed because an editor somewhere told him he needed more, and so we are left with a novel that tries to do too much and doesn’t satisfy. There are quirky anecdotes and fun character cameos; however, as a whole, the novel is not cohesive.
By the way, this is not a coffee shop chronicle. Some coffee shop reviews are tossed into the beginning chapters of the books (perhaps to justify the title?) but they were unnecessary to the story. Hopefully the next two books (this is supposed to be a novel in three parts) bring things together.
This novel confused me. There are several different writing styles in the beginning chapters and the overall character development (particularly of the book’s narrator, B. Sammy Singleton) was jagged. I’m not sure the author was clear on the voice he wanted to use; at times funny and biting, other times more serious and historical…which would have been okay, but it didn’t mesh well in this case.
The novel seemed to really begin with the chapter entitled Creole Heart - that's where I suspect the author began writing when he developed an idea for a book, but then somehow things morphed because an editor somewhere told him he needed more, and so we are left with a novel that tries to do too much and doesn’t satisfy. There are quirky anecdotes and fun character cameos; however, as a whole, the novel is not cohesive.
By the way, this is not a coffee shop chronicle. Some coffee shop reviews are tossed into the beginning chapters of the books (perhaps to justify the title?) but they were unnecessary to the story. Hopefully the next two books (this is supposed to be a novel in three parts) bring things together.
May 24, 2011
I wouldn't have finished it, except a friend wanted to know what I thought of it.
The story flails around a great deal, lurching from Catfish and his alleged grave robbing to Sammy, who's allegedly writing a guidebook to New Orleans' coffeehouses, back to Catfish's family history, and off again to Sammy's arrival in New Orleans. Trying to keep the plot straight was like being trapped in a pinball machine and keeping an eye on the ball.
Towards the end, things began to pull together, although I did wonder if the author was the lovechild of Jo Dereske and John Kennedy Toole. It seemed to combine Jo's attention to odd detail with Toole's New Orleans' based madness.
Then the writer suddenly channeled John Griffin's spirit and turned the last chapter into a version of "Black Like Me".
If there are parts two and three forthcoming, I doubt I'll read them.
The story flails around a great deal, lurching from Catfish and his alleged grave robbing to Sammy, who's allegedly writing a guidebook to New Orleans' coffeehouses, back to Catfish's family history, and off again to Sammy's arrival in New Orleans. Trying to keep the plot straight was like being trapped in a pinball machine and keeping an eye on the ball.
Towards the end, things began to pull together, although I did wonder if the author was the lovechild of Jo Dereske and John Kennedy Toole. It seemed to combine Jo's attention to odd detail with Toole's New Orleans' based madness.
Then the writer suddenly channeled John Griffin's spirit and turned the last chapter into a version of "Black Like Me".
If there are parts two and three forthcoming, I doubt I'll read them.
April 21, 2011
I wish there was a 3.5 star option. It is incredibly well written and the plot is interesting, but, like others, I struggled through the first half. It was difficult to keep track of who was who, and at what points in his life Sammy was ranting about. I am a big fan of non-linear story telling, so I like that the novel begins with Catfish's arrest and works in the back story through Sammy's memories, but I needed a few more clues or more history earlier to fully understand what was going on. Overall, I do think it is worth reading, especially if you like clever, Nick Hornby style writing, and the first half of the book becomes more clear as you get further in (or maybe if you've read my lovely review before reading, you'll know what to expect and not get confused by jumps through time). I'm curious to read the next two parts.
May 25, 2011
A friend won this in the Goodreads giveaway and I stole it from her. Wow. Kudos to Mr. Lummis for having the courage to take on such issues as New Orleans corruption (despite his obvious adoration of the city), religious hypocrisy, and America’s collective amnesia about slavery and willful ignorance about its legacy in this country today. Not sure why some readers have trouble following when narrator B. Sammy Singleton digresses, since Lummis always clearly states the time frame in question, and since for issues such as these past is obviously prologue. I suspect the actual problems many have with this novel relate more to its liberal slant as well as its medium of a white gay male narrator pointedly exploring the middle-American status quo. I laughed, and I cried, and I can’t wait for the remaining 2 parts of this beautifully written book.
April 6, 2013
The structure of this story was unusual. This made it difficult much of the time, especially in the first half. Lummis provided a glimpse of New Orleans culture and life unfamiliar to most folks. I'm a native of Louisiana and believe it is a credible view of a slice of the city. I did a little research on Lummis and learned he has street creds in terms of knowing the parts of the city in which he unfolds his story. Some of the venues were familiar to me, and I enjoyably gained insight into others. The characters were rich and interesting. A lot of the writing is quite good, though the pace drags in a few places. I'm curious enough to give Part 2 a shot in the future. I'll report back when I complete that journey. I'm certain this author is full of story to unload and will get better as he goes. If half stars were available this one would have come in at 3.5.
April 9, 2012
While there were parts of this book that I actually read out loud to others because they were funny or insightful, I felt that the book overall was very uneven. As another reviewer has said, David Lummis really didn't get to his point until the very end of the book, where he then slammed it into you like a cast iron skillet. And, then it ended. No resolutions at the end of the first book. None. I kept hitting the page forward button on my kindle to see if I'd missed something. I'm not sure that I'll continue on with parts 2 & 3 because although some of the plot is intriguing, I felt cheated.
June 7, 2011
There were some very good stretches of great writing, followed up with a couple of stretches that seemed to drag. It made me wonder why they were even in the book. Overall the good certainly outweighed the bad, and by the end, the character development was thorough which should help with the continuance of the series. I was never sure of the plot, and the flow of the book seemed odd. It was one I was able to put down at times, but there were long stretches that flew by before I knew that I had read that much.
March 17, 2012
We chose to read this one after Marla's fabulous bday bash in the Big Easy. For me, it was a pleasant read, but very uneventful. I didn't quite finish it, but probably will in the next couple of weeks. I think only a few of us made it through--some didn't even get started but I think that was more a function of life events than disinterest. Like I mentioned, it was pleasant, but not compelling.
Susan - 3/17/2012
Susan - 3/17/2012
May 2, 2014
It was OK. I thought Lummis spent too much effort trying to "write like he speaks" which is very difficult. The book was too full of "alliteration and run-on sentences and mellifluously mixed metaphors" (page16) to make it easy reading. Did I mention run-on sentences? I suppose if you love New Orleans, whether you live there or want to live there, you might enjoy this book.
May 22, 2011
I received a signed copy of this book and wanted so much to like it. I have been unable to finish it. What I did like was the authors actual coffee shop reviews. The story has not been that interesting. I have gone on to other things and will not have time for it right now. I do appreciate the signed copy and letter from the author.
June 25, 2011
I won this through the Goodreads First reads giveaway.
In the beginning it started off slow. The author just talked about things that to me weren't specific to the story. It was like he was just writing random thoughts down that he was thinking at that moment.
It would of been alot better story without the first part.
In the beginning it started off slow. The author just talked about things that to me weren't specific to the story. It was like he was just writing random thoughts down that he was thinking at that moment.
It would of been alot better story without the first part.
August 2, 2012
Not what I thought. Didn't finish.
August 13, 2014
Started this two times, and couldn't get past the first chapter. It rambled in odd formation and make no sense, kind of like a bad acid trip. Too many other good books to waste more time on it.
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