Dolores Else

I have visited New Orleans in person and loved it, but this time author, Dolores Else, whisked me away to Faubourg Marigny at the turn of the 20th century to an area teeming "with people of mixed blood of all colors...."

In the 1800s, Else explains, quadroon(white and 1/4 Black) women as well as those who could pass for white set up legal and happy contracts without the benefit of marriage with rich, white creole men. By 1900, descendants of these arrangements lived here together, a mixture of blood, culture and religion.

Else's story opens with La Fonda, an almost destitute black mother of two hungry children, who has fallen in love with Father Andre. Though he has fathered her boy and girl, and believes she is the love of his life, he does not seem to realize, as the story progresses, the incredible hardships she goes through to survive and then have his third child. Nevertheless, her love for him is deep and unquestioning, since she's been bereft of love her whole life, growing up without parents and siblings, thrust into odd jobs, such as a maid or a server, or even begging in order to live. When they first meet, Andre finds her a place to live and she is eternally grateful, suddenly realizing she has fallen in love with a priest. Andre, dedicated to his vocation, feels growing conflict due to his desire to be with and take care of LaFonda and his children.

True to the title of this book, Else offers readers several other women characters' stories woven through La Fonda and Father Andre's. They also live on Burgundy Street but are from higher classes of society: Miss Camelia, a happy middle-aged quadroon woman (Andre's aunt), who is a wonderful seamstress, hires La Fonda to be her maid and laundress. Camelia's daughters, Colette and Rosalia, are pampered by their mother with luxurious opera gowns as they also search for love despite unforseen hardships.

Another fascinating character is Katia who has fallen for the lying Leonel. Disowned by her wealthy father, Katia has come to New Orleans to rent out rooms in a bordello where she is unexpectedly reunited with Miss Camelia who has come to sew. Miss Camelia brought her up on a southern plantation. Of course, she meets La Fonda too, who cleans in the bordello. Eventually, Katia meets Leonel once again, whom she discovers is a fortune hunter and scoundrel.

Suffice it to say that this novel is filled to capacity with love stories, plus the disappointments men and life can bring to women of this fascinating era. But author Dolores Else's colorful historic detail of 1900 New Orleans is the proverbial frosting on this delicious cake of myriad romantic stories.… (altro)