Status
Available
Call number
Publication
New York : Ballantine, Books, 1992.
Description
Before the Civil War, there lived in Louisiana, people unique in Southern history. For though they were descended from African slaves, they were also descended from the French and Spanish who enslaved them. In this dazzling historical novel, Anne Rice chronicles four of these so-called Free People of Color--men and women caught periolously between the worlds of master and slave, privilege and oppression, passion and pain. "Anne Rice seems to be at home everywhere....She makes us believe everything she sees." THE NEW YORK TIMES
User reviews
LibraryThing member kraaivrouw
I read this book when it first came out when I was 16 & loved it. I've re-read it periodically & still love it (I think this makes my fourth read). The good thing about re-reading books is all the different perspectives you bring & the new things you notice because you've grown & changed.
When I was
This is not Anne Rice writing poorly (or otherwise) about paranormal things. This is Anne Rice writing well about history. I've always thought she wrote 4 really good books: this one, plus Interview With the Vampire, The Vampire Lestat, & Cry to Heaven. At some point she just started turning out page after page of garbage & I gave up on her. I return to this book often, though. Its characters & its sense of place & time draw me into its world & make me reluctant to leave. This is a good book.
When I was
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16 I was taken with the romanticism of the book - the free people of color, the world of Antebellum New Orleans, the various love stories - what teenager wouldn't swoon? At this point I still enjoy the romanticism, but the history means even more &, most of all, I love the search for identity & the love of books & learning that is evident throughout this story.This is not Anne Rice writing poorly (or otherwise) about paranormal things. This is Anne Rice writing well about history. I've always thought she wrote 4 really good books: this one, plus Interview With the Vampire, The Vampire Lestat, & Cry to Heaven. At some point she just started turning out page after page of garbage & I gave up on her. I return to this book often, though. Its characters & its sense of place & time draw me into its world & make me reluctant to leave. This is a good book.
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LibraryThing member pinkcrayon99
While rummaging around in one of the many flea markets I frequent this novel stood out among several hundred romance novels. I initially pushed the book to the side thinking it was just another Anne Rice vampire novel. For some reason I was drawn back to it. I picked it up, read the summary, and
This is a novel about the somewhat mysterious “gens de couleur libre” -the Free People of Color-set in New Orleans around the 1840s. The “gens de couleur” are the descendants of the African and the French but they embrace the latter. These are privileged families whose primary language is French and most speak very little English. The women possess a certain class and grace that cannot be taught it is simply bred into the very fabric of their being. The men are true gentleman who are determined to preserve their community and way of life. These are beautiful people. Their stories are very complicated and tragic. Their world is one made of glass that is eventually shattered.
The novel is focused on the Ste. Marie family. This family consists of the mother Cecile, a patriarch Phillippe Ferronaire, and their children Marcel and Marie. Phillippe Ferronaire is white and married with a family that lives on his plantation, Bontemps. Marcel has his father’s blue eyes and blonde hair but coarseness of that blonde hair keeps him from “passing”. Marie is the stunning beauty whose white skin betrays most. Marcel is our lovely protagonist whose life revolves around traveling to Paris when he turns eighteen and the arrival of a new teacher, Christophe. Christophe left the close knit “gens de couleur” community and traveled to Paris and made a name for himself as a writer. Christophe and Marcel start a unique instant friendship that transcended teacher and pupil. This friendship proves to be an anchor to them both in the perilous times that arise quite quickly.
As we read it seems as if Marcel’s life of privilege dealt him a short hand in preparing him to be a man. He is prepared to be a gentleman but not a man. With a father that is mostly absent, Marcel is left to his own random ideas of how his life should be. Marcel is faced with some hard decisions when his father’s constant supply of money is stopped abruptly and his dreams to go to Paris are lost forever. While everyone is consumed with Marcel, Marie goes unnoticed especially by Cecile. Even though Marie is a head turning beauty she has a wounded soul. She is torn between pleasing her ever persistent aunts by attending the quadroon balls to attract a rich white suitor, as her mother did, or marry the black man she loves, Richard Lermontant who happens to be Marcel’s best friend.
The lives of the characters of this novel are intertwined very intricately. I just want to describe a few. There was Dolly Rose, the beautiful yet self destructive quadroon beauty who had to bury her only child at such a young age and later establishes a brothel. The Lermontant’s are the wealthy free black family who bury the dead white and black. Juliet, Christopher’s mother, who was both eccentric and illiterate, took the teenage Marcel as a lover. Lisette, the mulatto house slave of the Ste. Marie’s, who allowed the broken promises of freedom and jealousy lead her to a tragic end. Then there was also the precious, Anna Bella, Marcel’s closest friend whose unconditional love for him proved to be her main obstacle. The main contributors to this way of life and bloodline were the white men that maintained separate black families for their own selfish benefit but never paid much attention to the long term effects of such selfishness. The lifestyle of the “gens de couleur” was a character as well as the city of New Orleans. I can’t say enough about how captivatingly beautiful this story was even with all the flawed yet beautiful people that brought it to life.
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decided to give the cashier the dollar it cost. I am glad I gave this book a second look because it was one of those very rare, beautiful, and stunning novels.This is a novel about the somewhat mysterious “gens de couleur libre” -the Free People of Color-set in New Orleans around the 1840s. The “gens de couleur” are the descendants of the African and the French but they embrace the latter. These are privileged families whose primary language is French and most speak very little English. The women possess a certain class and grace that cannot be taught it is simply bred into the very fabric of their being. The men are true gentleman who are determined to preserve their community and way of life. These are beautiful people. Their stories are very complicated and tragic. Their world is one made of glass that is eventually shattered.
The novel is focused on the Ste. Marie family. This family consists of the mother Cecile, a patriarch Phillippe Ferronaire, and their children Marcel and Marie. Phillippe Ferronaire is white and married with a family that lives on his plantation, Bontemps. Marcel has his father’s blue eyes and blonde hair but coarseness of that blonde hair keeps him from “passing”. Marie is the stunning beauty whose white skin betrays most. Marcel is our lovely protagonist whose life revolves around traveling to Paris when he turns eighteen and the arrival of a new teacher, Christophe. Christophe left the close knit “gens de couleur” community and traveled to Paris and made a name for himself as a writer. Christophe and Marcel start a unique instant friendship that transcended teacher and pupil. This friendship proves to be an anchor to them both in the perilous times that arise quite quickly.
As we read it seems as if Marcel’s life of privilege dealt him a short hand in preparing him to be a man. He is prepared to be a gentleman but not a man. With a father that is mostly absent, Marcel is left to his own random ideas of how his life should be. Marcel is faced with some hard decisions when his father’s constant supply of money is stopped abruptly and his dreams to go to Paris are lost forever. While everyone is consumed with Marcel, Marie goes unnoticed especially by Cecile. Even though Marie is a head turning beauty she has a wounded soul. She is torn between pleasing her ever persistent aunts by attending the quadroon balls to attract a rich white suitor, as her mother did, or marry the black man she loves, Richard Lermontant who happens to be Marcel’s best friend.
The lives of the characters of this novel are intertwined very intricately. I just want to describe a few. There was Dolly Rose, the beautiful yet self destructive quadroon beauty who had to bury her only child at such a young age and later establishes a brothel. The Lermontant’s are the wealthy free black family who bury the dead white and black. Juliet, Christopher’s mother, who was both eccentric and illiterate, took the teenage Marcel as a lover. Lisette, the mulatto house slave of the Ste. Marie’s, who allowed the broken promises of freedom and jealousy lead her to a tragic end. Then there was also the precious, Anna Bella, Marcel’s closest friend whose unconditional love for him proved to be her main obstacle. The main contributors to this way of life and bloodline were the white men that maintained separate black families for their own selfish benefit but never paid much attention to the long term effects of such selfishness. The lifestyle of the “gens de couleur” was a character as well as the city of New Orleans. I can’t say enough about how captivatingly beautiful this story was even with all the flawed yet beautiful people that brought it to life.
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LibraryThing member AlexTheHunn
This is one of Anne Rice's books that is not overtly connected with vampires, witches or mummies. Here Rice explores the world of the free blacks, and mulattos in New Orleans. Undervalued, as this may be one of her finer works.
LibraryThing member justine
A fascinating look at the hidden society of mixed-race people in ore-Civil War New Orleans.
LibraryThing member valentipoetry
This and cry to heaven are not horror by far, I only tag them thus to keep them together with her other work. This is the best book of hers, in my opinion. Even the movie was pretty good.
LibraryThing member jpsnow
I couldn't get through this - and that rarely happens. I guess I expected something akin to her vampire series. The story of the "Free People of Color" was interesting in itself, but her pages number too many for the content conveyed. Ultimately, at p. 296 of 640, I realized this was either
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third-rate historical fiction or a second-rate romance novel. For me, it was the end. Show Less
LibraryThing member ffortsa
Ann Rice's historical novel (no vampires here) about the free people of color in New Orleans. High romantic style and interesting characters.
LibraryThing member Natalie220
I liked this book. I automatically thought that it would be more of a horror book, but it wasn't it was a good story of where the half white, half black society stood, how they lived and how they felt about the world around them.
LibraryThing member Aerow
This was one of them most intriguing and historical novels I've read by Anne Rice. I've learned more about history from this book than most of her other books. Again, her writing is beautiful to read and again, her characters are absolutely believable.
Basically, the book is about free African
Basically, the book is about free African
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Americans before the civil war. Their struggles and freedoms of living in between the rungs of a social ladder of Caucasians and slaves. Very enlightening book, in deed. Show Less
LibraryThing member Amethyst26
One of Rice's best works.
LibraryThing member LBarrett87
An engaging historical novel about the Free People of Colour living in New Orleans before the Civil War. This novel differs from Rice's well known vampire tales and instead tells the story of a mulatto family navigating the freedoms and boundaries of a black and white world of which they are on the
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out skirts. Show Less
LibraryThing member zoomball
First found this book in a small town library back in the early 80's. The book was originally published in 1979. Loved it! There are other great in depth reviews here so I won't try to summarize. But I have read it 3 times over the years.
LibraryThing member AliceAnna
Very, very slow to get into like so many of her books, but once captivated by the free negros of New Orleans, I was intrigued and interested in their world and their stories. Richard was a true hero. I was glad he came through.
LibraryThing member jkdavies
I found this dull and overly long - I read it before a trip to New Orleans, hoping for some flavour, character but this felt like a historical romance, mannered, pretty but untrue.
LibraryThing member Cecilturtle
This historical novel describes Creole society shortly after the Louisiana Purchase. Educated and rich, the free people of colour had a unique culture, customs and mores. Their position, however, was tenuous, very much at the mercy and whim of white people, especially in-coming Americans. This
Rice showcases her style, full of flourish and drama, and the book is about 100 pages too long, but I found the read rewarding.
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novel doesn't sugar coat the difficulties despite the advantages.Rice showcases her style, full of flourish and drama, and the book is about 100 pages too long, but I found the read rewarding.
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Subjects
Language
Original publication date
1979
Physical description
828 p.; 23 inches
ISBN
0345376048 / 9780345376046