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Bourbon Street: The Dreams of Aeneas in Dixie
Epic "Bourbon Street" portrays the rise of a gifted, young and penniless photographer named Aeneas who wanders Bourbon Street to photograph in black-and-white the images of ancient, legendary jazz players. Discovered by an Uptown debutante, Aeneas transforms into a portrait photographer of New Orleans' aristocracy. "Bourbon Street" is a gallery of vivid portraits of the chimeras of Aeneas. Illuminating, white hot comedy and dark, existential contrasts blend pixels into fine prose about the quest for a better life based upon one's dreams. "Bourbon Street" beckons you to the gallery of the dreams of Aeneas in the French Quarter of New Orleans.
"Told through the vehicle of the tale, it is like a street-car rattling past the bars and drunks and jazz and creeping vegetation, the lonely souls, the nectar-draw of sex, the steaks and bourbons, that combine to make 'Bourbon Street' a wonderful book and cement the place of Lentz as a writer of formidable scope and ability." - Bruce McLaren, Author of "The Plain of Dead Cities"
"Lentz will go down in history as a great writer whose work will transcend time. Lentz is an exceptionally talented wordsmith. Through his august body of work he constantly strives to reshape dialogue on what constitutes great literature while hammering his own work, like the artist he is, forever pounding at the forge of public opinion with the fierce heat of his incredibly rich mind." – Goodreads
"A journey: if you know what it means to miss New Orleans, then you really should read this book." -- Yvonne LaFleur
"Lentz has a talent for blending a compelling story line with pathos and humor, a measure of literary and historical allusion, and vivid imagery. The result is the literary equivalent of high definition -- the reader is bombarded with rich text that infuses the senses." -- The Greenwich Post
"His pixilism is a sort of 21st century, digital metaphor that has similarities to French Impressionist paintings. Each sentence represents an idea, image or treatment of the big picture." -- The Redding Pilot
"Lentz especially likes to explore how creative people survive and contribute in a large and often impersonal environment. What is the role of a talented individual, an artist for example, in a complex, vast society?" -- New Canaan Advertiser
"His writing is different because he does not manufacture cookie-cutter best-sellers." -- The Wilton Bulletin
"Lentz's approach to writing is soul driven." -- The Weston Forum
"Hot as a New Orleans' summer." -- John A. Taylor, Jr., CLU
"Told through the vehicle of the tale, it is like a street-car rattling past the bars and drunks and jazz and creeping vegetation, the lonely souls, the nectar-draw of sex, the steaks and bourbons, that combine to make 'Bourbon Street' a wonderful book and cement the place of Lentz as a writer of formidable scope and ability." - Bruce McLaren, Author of "The Plain of Dead Cities"
"Lentz will go down in history as a great writer whose work will transcend time. Lentz is an exceptionally talented wordsmith. Through his august body of work he constantly strives to reshape dialogue on what constitutes great literature while hammering his own work, like the artist he is, forever pounding at the forge of public opinion with the fierce heat of his incredibly rich mind." – Goodreads
"A journey: if you know what it means to miss New Orleans, then you really should read this book." -- Yvonne LaFleur
"Lentz has a talent for blending a compelling story line with pathos and humor, a measure of literary and historical allusion, and vivid imagery. The result is the literary equivalent of high definition -- the reader is bombarded with rich text that infuses the senses." -- The Greenwich Post
"His pixilism is a sort of 21st century, digital metaphor that has similarities to French Impressionist paintings. Each sentence represents an idea, image or treatment of the big picture." -- The Redding Pilot
"Lentz especially likes to explore how creative people survive and contribute in a large and often impersonal environment. What is the role of a talented individual, an artist for example, in a complex, vast society?" -- New Canaan Advertiser
"His writing is different because he does not manufacture cookie-cutter best-sellers." -- The Wilton Bulletin
"Lentz's approach to writing is soul driven." -- The Weston Forum
"Hot as a New Orleans' summer." -- John A. Taylor, Jr., CLU
243 pages, Paperback
First published April 29, 2002
57 people want to read
About the author
David B. Lentz
17 books343 followersBorn in Woburn, Massachusetts, David B. Lentz is an alumnus of Bates College as well as the Yale and Wesleyan Writers' Conferences. He is a member of the Center for Fiction in New York, the Royal Society of Literature in London, the Poetry Society of America, the Academy of American Poets, and the Connecticut Authors and Publishers Association. He has published seven novels: "The Fine Art of Grace", "For the Beauty of the Earth", "AmericA, Inc.", "Bloomsday", "Bourbon Street", "The Day Trader" and "The Silver King." He has written two stage plays, "Bloomsday: A Tragicomedy" and "AmericA, Inc." Lentz published three volumes of poetry in "Old Greenwich Odes", "Sonnets from New England: Love Songs" and "Sonnets on the Common Man" in the latter two of which he introduced new sonnet forms. He created a new model of critical literary theory for reviewing novels in his book, "Novel Criticism." Selected excerpts from his collection of literary works among his novels, stage plays and poetry are available in "Essential Lentz." Three of his novels and one of his stage plays have been read for Pulitzer Prizes in Letters and Drama, respectively, but none has short-listed. Lentz has served Bates College as an Alumnus-in-Admissions (18 years), Stamford-Greenwich Literacy Volunteers of America, Midnight Run for New York City Homeless, Healing the Children Northeast, Inc. (Board), Hurricane Katrina JazzAid: New Orleans, Hope + Heroes Children's Cancer Foundation, St. Baldricks Foundation for Children's Cancer Research and as a Volunteer in St. Paul's Chapel at Ground Zero. Lentz has lived in the Garden District of New Orleans, Boston's Back Bay, Houston, Philadelphia's Main Line and Greenwich, Connecticut.
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Displaying 1 of 1 review
August 7, 2014
David Lentz delights in the world around him, in all the grit and glory, in all of the passions and extremes. Lentz is not afraid to write about that greatest of all mysteries – life – and that takes courage and backbone. His writing has a “take no prisoners approach”. Nothing is sacred and nothing is off the table for discussion, and that honesty is the trait I admire most in a writer.
Bourbon Street takes place in the city of New Orleans, where the main character, Jack Jam Aeneas, a relocated northerner, is struggling to survive as a photographer. In fact, it is more accurate to say that he is barely staying alive. To use an old term in its true sense, Jack Jam is beat. Enter Lavinia, a stunning beauty with old money, who turns his life around, having him climb the social and financial scales. Disasters follow successes, but the story of Bourbon Street is essentially a love story about these two characters. Other characters weave in and out of the story, from the stern father of Lavinia, to the nymphomaniac sex-kitten Didi Bontempo, hard-drinking friends, horny interns and a nemesis with a considerably vengeful appetite. But this is a great love story when all is said and done.
Now there are a lot of love stories out there but there are none like this. Lentz is not your typical writer. He is clearly a man of wide-ranging interests and experience. To begin with the entire framework for Bourbon Street is provided by Virgil’s Aeneid. The first hint is right there in the name of Jack Jam Aeneas. As in the Aeneid, Bourbon Street is divided into twelve parts, called Chimeras by Lentz, the Chimera being the Classical monster made of many parts. So we are not just dealing with a New Orleans love story here. This is a modern rendering of an ancient tale of Classical Antiquity – parallel tales. Lentz is a wordsmith and peppers the tale with classical references. There is a sculpture of Laocoon on a desk. Didi is a take on Dido. Cerberus, Sibyl, Daedalus, Pan, Romulus and others get a mention. In one particularly clever passage Lentz makes references to Rome, Ithaca, Troy and Syracuse, when speaking of New York State!
To hold the reader Lentz writes in strong prose. His dialogue is particularly strong with witty banter and repartee. His delight with words and the humor he finds in playing with them is evident throughout the book. So someone can be “Thoreauly unamused by society”. A cuckold is cuckolded. The violin is base. Rappelling is repelling and boars are boors. In a dream sequence he pulls a codfish from his codpiece!
But make no mistake, Lentz, like I said, is a man of the world and is an honest writer. He dives straight into the nature of the relationship between the sexes. He tackles the conundrum of the forces that drive an artist, and he doesn’t shy away from religious excursus - “Ever since the birth of religion, that ethics, guilt and conscience have been sapping men’s spirits”. He also pontificates on issues I have often thought of but rarely expressed, for example, the curse of the woman blessed with such beauty that she intimidates the male with her over-abundance. Similarly, there is the mystery of women being attracted to men who ignore them while being bored by men who chase them.
On a final note, and as a good measure of Lentz’s worldliness, are the philosophical pearls that appear on nearly every page. “There is no justice in this world. Just a little mercy now and then. For those smart enough to find some”. “We’ll sail where the wind takes us and that will be our course”. “The heaven we make is our only haven”. “I care more about living, than making a living”.
But the philosophical observation, the word-play, the fast banter, the Classical structure and references, are but parts in a greater play. It is the sum of these elements, told through the vehicle of the tale, like a street-car rattling past the bars and drunks and jazz and creeping vegetation, the lonely souls, the nectar-draw of sex, the steaks and bourbons, that combine to make Bourbon Street a wonderful book and cement the place of Lentz as a writer of formidable scope and ability.
Bourbon Street takes place in the city of New Orleans, where the main character, Jack Jam Aeneas, a relocated northerner, is struggling to survive as a photographer. In fact, it is more accurate to say that he is barely staying alive. To use an old term in its true sense, Jack Jam is beat. Enter Lavinia, a stunning beauty with old money, who turns his life around, having him climb the social and financial scales. Disasters follow successes, but the story of Bourbon Street is essentially a love story about these two characters. Other characters weave in and out of the story, from the stern father of Lavinia, to the nymphomaniac sex-kitten Didi Bontempo, hard-drinking friends, horny interns and a nemesis with a considerably vengeful appetite. But this is a great love story when all is said and done.
Now there are a lot of love stories out there but there are none like this. Lentz is not your typical writer. He is clearly a man of wide-ranging interests and experience. To begin with the entire framework for Bourbon Street is provided by Virgil’s Aeneid. The first hint is right there in the name of Jack Jam Aeneas. As in the Aeneid, Bourbon Street is divided into twelve parts, called Chimeras by Lentz, the Chimera being the Classical monster made of many parts. So we are not just dealing with a New Orleans love story here. This is a modern rendering of an ancient tale of Classical Antiquity – parallel tales. Lentz is a wordsmith and peppers the tale with classical references. There is a sculpture of Laocoon on a desk. Didi is a take on Dido. Cerberus, Sibyl, Daedalus, Pan, Romulus and others get a mention. In one particularly clever passage Lentz makes references to Rome, Ithaca, Troy and Syracuse, when speaking of New York State!
To hold the reader Lentz writes in strong prose. His dialogue is particularly strong with witty banter and repartee. His delight with words and the humor he finds in playing with them is evident throughout the book. So someone can be “Thoreauly unamused by society”. A cuckold is cuckolded. The violin is base. Rappelling is repelling and boars are boors. In a dream sequence he pulls a codfish from his codpiece!
But make no mistake, Lentz, like I said, is a man of the world and is an honest writer. He dives straight into the nature of the relationship between the sexes. He tackles the conundrum of the forces that drive an artist, and he doesn’t shy away from religious excursus - “Ever since the birth of religion, that ethics, guilt and conscience have been sapping men’s spirits”. He also pontificates on issues I have often thought of but rarely expressed, for example, the curse of the woman blessed with such beauty that she intimidates the male with her over-abundance. Similarly, there is the mystery of women being attracted to men who ignore them while being bored by men who chase them.
On a final note, and as a good measure of Lentz’s worldliness, are the philosophical pearls that appear on nearly every page. “There is no justice in this world. Just a little mercy now and then. For those smart enough to find some”. “We’ll sail where the wind takes us and that will be our course”. “The heaven we make is our only haven”. “I care more about living, than making a living”.
But the philosophical observation, the word-play, the fast banter, the Classical structure and references, are but parts in a greater play. It is the sum of these elements, told through the vehicle of the tale, like a street-car rattling past the bars and drunks and jazz and creeping vegetation, the lonely souls, the nectar-draw of sex, the steaks and bourbons, that combine to make Bourbon Street a wonderful book and cement the place of Lentz as a writer of formidable scope and ability.
Displaying 1 of 1 review