Bayou Roots

Dusty diaries, family letters and treasured memorabilia found in a moldy New Orleans basement, reveal the lives of five generations and connect the author with her family's past in a way no history book ever could. These ancestors were formed into shadowy flesh-and-blood people she would recognize on the street if she passed them.

A veteran music journalist explores rock-n-roll’s bayou roots in “a jolting 18-track joy ride [that] unlocks secrets and back-stories worth savoring” (The Wall Street Journal). The bayou of the American south—stretching from Houston, Texas, to Mobile, Alabama—is a world all its own, with a rich cultural heritage that has had an outsized influence on musicians across the globe. In this unique study of marsh music, Dave Thompson goes beyond the storied stomping grounds of New Orleans to discover secret legends and vivid mythology in the surrounding wilderness. In Bayou Underground, the people who have called the bayou home—such as Bob Dylan, Jerry Reed, Nick Cave, Bo Didley, a one-armed Cajun backwoodsman, and gator hunter named Amos Moses—are unearthed through their own words, their lives and music, and interviews with residents from the region. Included interviews with legendary musicians like Jerry Reed and Bo Didley, Bayou Underground is part travelogue, part social history, and part lament for a way of life that has now all but disappeared.

James Lee Burke developed the character of Cajun detective Dave Robicheaux through twenty mystery novels published over three decades. Despite readers’ increasing interest in Detective Robicheaux, his habits and preferences originate from a culture still unfamiliar to many of the books’ fans. In Robicheaux’s Roots, Patricia M. Gaitely explores the music, food, language, and folklore of southwest Louisiana and illuminates the cultural sources that Burke incorporated into this gripping series. Part of Robicheaux’s appeal, Gaitely shows, rests in his connection to his hometown of New Iberia, with its faults, charm, and reliance on the old ways. Multiple cultural strands coexist in this region, including Creole and Cajun French dialect; African American folk sayings; swamp pop, zydeco, and blues music; and voodoo, Catholicism, evangelicalism, and faith healing. These aspects of Cajun life weave throughout Robicheaux’s world. The commingling of so many traditions provides multiple meanings for even the most common encounters—water can be both natural element and medium between living and dead; and gumbo, jambalaya, and crawfish may represent more than simply regional foods. Additionally, Gaitely demonstrates that beneath the pleasant veneer of southern hospitality, a persistent legacy of violence and vengeance leaves a lasting mark on the lives of Robicheaux and the other characters. Robicheaux’s Roots reveals how elements of south Louisiana’s culture signal a sense of belonging but also recall the area’s history of isolation. As a result, readers gain a deeper understanding of Robicheaux himself and an enhanced appreciation for Burke’s acclaimed series.

Jerry Cline exists at the whim of an 1869 Comanche raiding party on his birthfathers family ranch in Central Texas. Jerry could also be a poster-boy for successful adoptions. He was adopted at age 3 months in 1939 by a hard-living couple from East Texas, via the Indian Territory of Oklahoma before it became a state. Despite the raw and dusty origins of his forbearers, Jerry grew up to earn a Ph.D. in mathematics from Purdue University and enjoyed a long career in the aerospace industry with McDonnell Douglas Corporation (now The Boeing Company). He worked on several space and missile programs and was part of the team which developed the design for the Space Shuttle. Dr. Cline also held an academic appointment as an adjunct faculty member of the mathematics department of Washington University in St. Louis. Jerry is now retired and lives in St. Louis with his wife Phyllis. In 2001, aided by his wife, a cooperative adoption agency, and an expert genealogist, Jerry Cline began what turned out to be an exciting and successful quest for his birthparents and knowledge of how he came to be. He was 61 years old at the time. The search itself, the surprising identities of his birthparents, the heartwarming face-to-face meetings with new-found blood relatives and several years of research inspired this book. In Born and Raised, Jerry shares the details of his dramatic search and weaves a fascinating composite of the histories of his birthparents, his adoptive parents, their families, plus related events and personalities from Americas past. Thanks to two books written long ago, one by his birthfather (a renowned lawman of the Old West), and one by an aunt, Jerry is able to provide a graphic and authentic glimpse into what life was like on Americas frontier in the mid 19th century. Born and Raised is a classic tale of nature and nurture. That the stories in it are true makes the book all the more remarkable and appealing.

In the tradition of the modern classics The Tender Bar and The Liars’ Club, Blaine Lourd writes a powerful Gothic memoir set in the bayous and oil towns of 1970s Louisiana. In this rags-to-riches memoir of finding your way and becoming a man, Blaine Lourd renders his childhood in rural Louisiana­ with his larger-than-life father, Harvey “Puffer” Lourd, Jr., a charismatic salesman during the exploding 1980s awl bidness. From cleaning a duck to drinking a beer, Puffer guides Blaine through the twists and turns of growing up, ultimately pointing him to a poignant truth: sometimes those you love the most can inflict the most pain. Set against a lush landscape of magnolia trees and majestic old homes, haunted swamps and swimming holes filled with wildlife, Lourd gets to the heart of being a Southerner with rawness and grace, beautifully detailing what it means to have a place so ingrained in your being. Just as the timeless memoirs All Over but the Shoutin’ and The Liar’s Club evoke the muggy air of a Southern summer and barrels of steaming crawfish, so does Blaine’s contemporary exploration of what it means to find yourself among the bayous and back roads. Charting his journey from his rural home to working the star-studded streets of Los Angeles as a financial advisor to the rich and famous, Blaine’s story is about the complicated path to success and identity. With witty grace and candid prose, he pays homage to family bonds, unwavering loyalty, and deep roots that cannot be severed, no matter how hard you try.

When most people think of Cajun cooking, they think of blackened redfish or, maybe, gumbo. When Terri Pischoff Wuerthner thinks of Cajun cooking, she thinks about Great-Grandfather Theodore's picnics on Lake Carenton, children gathering crawfish fresh from the bayou for supper, and Grandma Olympe's fricassee of beef, because Terri Pischoff Wuerthner is descended from an old Cajun family. Through a seamless blend of storytelling and recipes to live by, Wuerthner's In a Cajun Kitchen will remind people of the true flavors of Cajun cooking. When her ancestors settled in Louisiana around 1760, her family grew into a memorable clan that understood the pleasures of the table and the bounty of the Louisiana forests, fields, and waters. Wuerthner spices her gumbo with memories of Cajun community dances, wild-duck hunts, and parties at the family farm. From the Civil War to today, Wuerthner brings her California-born Cajun family together to cook and share jambalaya, crawfish étoufée, shrimp boil, and more, while they cook, laugh, eat, and carry on the legacy of Louis Noel Labauve, one of the first French settlers in Acadia in the 1600s. Along with the memories, In a Cajun Kitchen presents readers with a treasure trove of authentic Cajun recipes: roasted pork mufaletta sandwiches, creamy crab casserole, breakfast cornbread with sausage and apples, gumbo, shrimp fritters, black-eyed pea and andouille bake, coconut pralines, pecan pie, and much more. In a Cajun Kitchen is a great work of culinary history, destined to be an American cookbook classic that home cooks will cherish.

The first serious historical examination of a distinctive multiracial society of Louisiana

Lake Charles experienced dramatic changes following World War II. During athe 1950s and 1960s, the city's young petrochemical industry and the nation's rising consumer economy led to a surge of construction south and east of the city. As people moved to the suburbs, the urban core of Lake Charles suffered destruction and neglect. The turn of the 21st century brought expanded industries to Lake Charles, including gaming, tourism, and aviation maintenance. Amidst these changes, Lake Charles retains its unique southwest Louisiana flavor. The area hosts over 75 annual festivals celebrating a rich history. Residents and visitors enjoy outdoor recreation on the area's bayous, rivers, and lakes. Lake Charles is famous for its cuisine, which often features a bounty of regional seafood. The city's location on the Calcasieu River, the unique culture of southwest Louisiana, and the resilient and hospitable peole help to make Lake Charles a jewel of the Gulf Coast.

Honore, a well respected and very successful man in his community of Pisiguit, Acadia suddenly comes to find himself and his young family without a home. His son Joseph had just turned two years old. They are scattered to the winds across the Atlantic to England then France. The years pass and Joseph, now a young man, longs to be reunited with his extended family in south Louisiana. Meanwhile, nearly three thousand miles away in the Canary Islands, a young man named Andres must face the harsh realties and misfortunes of life before he is finally presented with an opportunity for a fresh start in Louisiana. These two peoples from different places, speaking different languages, and having different cultures ultimately come together in the inhospitable swamps and along the murky bayous of Ascension parish. Will their differences create an environment of conflict and strife, or will their shared faith bring them together? Follow the journey of these courageous and resilient people as they live off the land and face life's challenges. Along the way, you will come to know the fascinating history of these two cultures and the vastly different circumstances that brought them together.

The representation of Southerners on film has been a topic of enduring interest and debate among scholars of both film and Southern studies. These 15 essays examine the problem of Southern identity in film since the civil rights era. Fresh insights are provided on such familiar topics as the redneck image, transitions to modernity and the prevalence of the Southern gothic. Other essays reflect the reinvigorated and expanding field of new Southern studies and topics include the transnational South, the intersection of ethnicity and environment and the cultural significance of Southern identity outside the South.