The Sound of Building Coffins by Louis Maistros - book release, author reading & signing
Octavia Books, Thursday, March 5, 2009 at 6pm
Louis Maistros , The Sound of Building Coffins.
"Louis Maistros has written a lyrical, complex, and brave novel that takes enormous risks and pulls them all off" -Peter Straub "Easily one of the finest and truest pieces of New Orleans fiction I've ever read" - Poppy Z. Brite It is 1891 in New Orleans, a young Typhus Morningstar cycles under the light of the half-moon to fulfill
his calling, rebirthing aborted fetuses in the fecund waters of the Mississippi River. He cannot know that nearby,
events are unfolding that will change his life forever--events that were set in motion by a Voodoo curse gone
wrong, forty years before he was born. In the humble home of Sicilian immigrants, a one-year-old boy has been possessed by a demon. His father
dead, lynched by a mob, his distraught mother at her wits' end, this baby who yesterday could only crawl and
gurgle is now walking, dancing, and talking -- in a voice impossibly deep. The doctor has fled, and several men of
the cloth have come and gone, including Typhus. father, warned off directly by the clear voice of his Savior. A
newspaper man, shamed by the part he played in inciting the lynch mob that cost this boy his father, appalled by
what he sees, goes in search of help. Seven will be persuaded, will try to help ... and all seven will be profoundly affected by what takes place in
that one-room house that dark night. Not all will leave alive, and all will be irrevocably changed by this demonic
struggle, and by the sound of the first notes blown of a new musical form: jazz. Vivid and complex, meticulously-drawn in lyrical prose, this tale of death and rebirth, devastation and
redemption, will draw you into a world of beauty and pain, as alluring as it is dangerous. Louis Maistros has
captured the essence of New Orleans, and set it free on these pages to work its magic on us all. Louis Maistros is a longtime resident of the 8th Ward. A writer with no formal
training, his work has appeared in the New Orleans Times-Picayune and the Baltimore City Paper. He and his wife, Elly, currently own and operate Louie's Juke Joint, a combination jazz record shop and Voodoo botanica. (booksense)… (more)
"Louis Maistros has written a lyrical, complex, and brave novel that takes enormous risks and pulls them all off" -Peter Straub "Easily one of the finest and truest pieces of New Orleans fiction I've ever read" - Poppy Z. Brite It is 1891 in New Orleans, a young Typhus Morningstar cycles under the light of the half-moon to fulfill
his calling, rebirthing aborted fetuses in the fecund waters of the Mississippi River. He cannot know that nearby,
events are unfolding that will change his life forever--events that were set in motion by a Voodoo curse gone
wrong, forty years before he was born. In the humble home of Sicilian immigrants, a one-year-old boy has been possessed by a demon. His father
dead, lynched by a mob, his distraught mother at her wits' end, this baby who yesterday could only crawl and
gurgle is now walking, dancing, and talking -- in a voice impossibly deep. The doctor has fled, and several men of
the cloth have come and gone, including Typhus. father, warned off directly by the clear voice of his Savior. A
newspaper man, shamed by the part he played in inciting the lynch mob that cost this boy his father, appalled by
what he sees, goes in search of help. Seven will be persuaded, will try to help ... and all seven will be profoundly affected by what takes place in
that one-room house that dark night. Not all will leave alive, and all will be irrevocably changed by this demonic
struggle, and by the sound of the first notes blown of a new musical form: jazz. Vivid and complex, meticulously-drawn in lyrical prose, this tale of death and rebirth, devastation and
redemption, will draw you into a world of beauty and pain, as alluring as it is dangerous. Louis Maistros has
captured the essence of New Orleans, and set it free on these pages to work its magic on us all. Louis Maistros is a longtime resident of the 8th Ward. A writer with no formal
training, his work has appeared in the New Orleans Times-Picayune and the Baltimore City Paper. He and his wife, Elly, currently own and operate Louie's Juke Joint, a combination jazz record shop and Voodoo botanica. (booksense)… (more)
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