The City That Care Forgot

I've never been to New Orleans, but then again I feel like its one of those places that you know even if you've never boon there. I've seen Easy Rider and tripped out in St. Louis cemetery No. 1, Interview with the Vampire and seen how the wealthy nocturnal citizens live. Penelope Williamson's Mortal Sins and Wages of Sin give a gritty and damp trip down every street and alley. C.S. Graham's Tobie Guiness and her weird remote viewing talents live in a shotgun in the Irish Cannel. I rode a Streetcar Named Desire with Stella, and Stanley, and Blanche. Then there was Christopher Rice's debut novel, A Density of Souls that was an eerie foreshadowing of the apocalyptic times to come in the wake of Katrina and Rita. That, we've all seen and even five years later the evidence lingers. 

That being said I have never been a huge Anne Rice fan. I saw the movie of Interview with the Vampire before I read the book and I liked it, the book I thought was really slow. I got maybe five chapters in the The Vampire Lestat (I remember siting in a HoneyDew Donuts near the URI campus reading it and eating a maple donut, weird don't ask me why the vivid memory) and got bored with it, I thought the rock star thing was just silly. I also tried to work my way through her new books (well not so new now) about Christ the Lord and frankly they still weren't good enough to hold my attention. Having read all about The Witching Hour, the first hefty tome in the Mayfair Witches saga I may give it a whirl, though every literary review warns against it. Nine hundred plus pages is a big commitment.

As for the travel guide itself, meh. She has to spend so much time explaining the geography that her actual descriptions of the locations fall short. Other than that some slight organizational make it difficult to navigate. Now I have gone this distance on sightseeing many times, my friend Alyssa is still bitter about me dragging her to the In Cold Blood house, however Joy Dickinson goes beyond stalker and I actually felt a little guilty at times reading about the author's "investigations" into the true Anne Rice stories of the city. Maybe I'm a creepy stalker to, just for reading it, whatever, if I go to the Big Easy, believe me it'll be for the beignets at Cafe du Monde.  

License to Gild

You knew it had to happen eventually, I broke down and read a nonfiction book. Seriously, I do read nonfiction, however not always for pleasure and often I jump around and only read the parts I'm interested in. For example I read bits of The Origins of the Franco-American Colony in Woonsocket, RI which I picked up the same day as Gilded, it was very good and interesting... that is the parts I read. I skimmed a lot and read about a third of the book in detail. The question is, does that count? In my eyes not really, which is why it doesn't go on the list or get featured on the Headcase Bookcase. That and I find many nonfiction books are so narrow in their focus that they lack general appeal. That being said I don't think Gilded is one of those nonfiction books.

I'm a native Rhode Islander, I grew up surrounded by the legends of Newport and have read countless books concerning the seaside playground of the Victorian rich and famous. When I took a class in college on the history of Rhode Island, our professor actually skipped over Newport and the Gilded Age because she knew we had already been there and done that. That being said, I think that Deborah Davis' book is a well-rounded, smartly structured, all access guide. She looks at all aspects of the so-called Gilded Age, from the initial construction of the seaside "cottages" to the question of street development, to pre-Gilded Age Newport, and finally beyond the Vanderbuilts and the Rockafellers to the servants and townspeople. 

I haven't read her other books, but I enjoyed Gilded enough to want to check them out. I think she takes a more lighthearted approach to nonfiction writing, and her brief chapters make it a nice book to dip in and out of. I confess I read it sporadically over several weeks. Also I don't think anyone can disagree that the story about the old society matron who declined a copy of Davis' book on the Black and White Ball on the grounds that Truman Capote "was a nasty, little homosexual" is equal parts shocking and hilarious.