Displaying 1 of 1 2003 Format: Book Author: St. Germain, Sheryl. Title: Swamp songs : the making of an unruly woman / Sheryl St. Germain. Publisher, Date: Salt Lake City : University of Utah Press, [2003] ©2003 Description: xii, 228 pages ; 23 cm Subjects: St. Germain, Sheryl. St. Germain, Sheryl -- Homes and haunts -- Louisiana. Poets, American -- 20th century -- Biography. Women -- Louisiana -- Biography. Families -- Louisiana. New Orleans (La.) -- Social life and customs. Louisiana -- Social life and customs. Notes: 053439 ; *053440 LCCN: 2002014256 ISBN: 0874807433 System Availability: 2 # System items in: 2 # Local items: 2 # Local items in: 2 Current Holds: 0 Place Request Add to My List Expand All | Collapse All Availability Large Cover Image Trade Reviews Publishers Weekly ReviewLandscape shapes this collection of essays by the New Orleans-born and bred poet St. Germain (The Journals of Scheherazade). While her family has all the earmarks of a troubled one-"drugs, alcoholism, sex, murder, suicide"-their tale is merely the frame within which St. Germain has constructed a memoir of and dirge for a place: Louisiana. St. Germain brings these essays together with little disjunction and few repetitions. In her telling, family data are often blurry and family versions of events can differ (e.g., why and how Grandfather shot his eye out). Place, however, is unmistakable and tangible. St. Germain's passionate commitment to place is the lens through which she conveys the specialness of growing up in the Louisiana swampland, where Christmas celebrations, amusement parks, meals and even fishing are as ordained by the landscape as hurricanes, which can wreak "almost one and a half billion dollars worth of damage," and Mardi Gras, that time when the uptown streets become so clogged St. Germain sits on her friend's shoulders, "lifted high and parentless above the swaggering crowds." St. Germain succeeds in simultaneously offering a sensitive memoir and an homage to Louisiana's swamps, the people who dwell near them and New Orleans. (Mar.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved Summary A compelling, painfully beautiful memoir of growing up in the swamplands of Louisiana. Table of Contents Acknowledgmentsp. xiLakeshore Drive, New Orleansp. 3Eye of the Stormp. 6Bodies of Water: A Suite from the Southp. 17The Story My Mother Told Mep. 35Trying to Singp. 40Controlling Francoisp. 57Sweets and Shiny Thingsp. 78Swamp Songsp. 95Disappearing Bodies: Fishing for a Brother and a Landp. 110Communionp. 128Looking for Lightp. 140The Sound of Planesp. 161Whips and Unruly Womenp. 185Afterword: Bring Me a Dreamp. 219About the Authorp. 228 Librarian's View Syndetics Unbound Displaying 1 of 1
