Ron predicted that UW would examine Staci and send her right back home to Kathi’s and so they did. He talked to them on the phone. Clint got in okay and they will be here until Wednesday. We are planning to get together with them Tuesday, my next day off.
Work was the usual easy Sunday. I was amazed that most of the Harry Potters remained unclaimed on their cart in the back room. (I have also suffered from the temptation to go ahead and buy a copy, but new books are not in our budget so I have so far resisted, though who knows how long my resolve will last…)
I had not previously heard of Poppy Z. Brite, who apparently has written seven other novels, but I came across D*U*C*K the other day and was sufficiently intrigued to bring it home and read it. It is a very short novel (132 pages) about a gay black couple in New Orleans who are chefs and run a restaurant called Liquor, where they use booze in all the recipes. The plot centers around their experiences catering a banquet in Opelousas for an organization of duck hunters who are working to preserve the wetlands. Brite (who appears to be a petite white woman reminiscent of a porcelain doll in her jacket photo) writes with authority about New Orleans and restaurant kitchens, although at times her gay, black, male protagonists fail to ring true. I thoroughly enjoyed the book, which is in some ways an erotic love poem to New Orleans and its food. But given the extreme brevity and the $35 cover price (?!?!???!!!) I can’t recommend anyone go out and buy it.
Also, although this book is available from Pierce County Library, it is for some reason not listed in Worldcat, so there is no link to the book cover.
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October 9th, 2007 at 10:21 am
Er, Rickey and G-Man aren’t black. They’re white, but raised in the Lower Ninth Ward of New Orleans. D*U*C*K is what would have been the further continuation of a series of books about Rickey and G-Man and their resturaunt (Liquour, Prime, Soul Kitchen), but Katrina happened and she decided she couldn’t continue the series without addressing the reality of that disaster. D*U*C*K was released in limited edition as a kind of alternate reality and she’s now working on the actual sequel to Soul Kitchen, Dead Shrimp Blues, which will address the affects of Katrina.
~db
October 9th, 2007 at 5:59 pm
When I subsequently read and blogged about Soul Kitchen it was made clear that the protagonists are a white couple, and I did clarify that in my blog post on Soul Kitchen.