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Out Right Now: The Ballad of Perilous Graves, by Alex Jennings
The reviews are in, and this book is a thick hardback of a good time. A good, scary time. The language in The Ballad of Perilous Graves is unique, the rhythm hypnotic. This book has an ensemble of monsters, zombies and “haints” that roam the city streets seemingly just doing their own thing and the characters are colorful enough to paint the whole town red.
A book of horrors, it centers around New Orleans and Nola with protagonists Casey and Perry being heroes and saving art. I know Alex Jennings as a transplant New Orleans comedian. In the first few pages of the book I began to question my own reality. Was he really from Germany? How did he trap all those hecklers into a hardback book?
As he described a lady speed-walking down St Charles I could remember seeing her from the balcony at Lucky’s. It is frightening how real the magical part of the book feels as compared to the mundane counterpart of Casey’s reality. And Casey’s reality is the one that should be more familiar. There’s a horrid part of me that believes that while we were getting drunk at the open mics there was a whole 'nother world of magic permeating.
Another reason to fear this book is the authentic, unapologetic language. Spooky that a transplant from Germany could portray it so well, but I imagine it’s even scarier for a white person to read. White people should be very afraid to get the voices of this book incorrect. In fact, ask your black friends to read a page or six out loud so you can hear it. If you are hearing minstrel show white people in black face, you’ve gone to the wrong side of the graveyard, my friend. This book is black as hell.
After questioning my reality in the first chapter, I got some air and decided to continue reading at a coffee shop in Metairie. Sitting in the French Press with my lady friend across from me, I began to feel the magic of Nola. To our right sat two women who were white and black respectively, like an inverse of our own table. They represented Nola and New Orleans. As I read, the white lady counseled the black woman and their conversation both took away and added to what I read. The magic of Nola was disgruntled that it had to deal with all of the zombies and haints whilst the New Orleans reality was completely ignoring the magic pitfalls. Nola protects New Orleans whilst New Orleans just neglects and even goes so far as to not believe Nola’s story.
The reviews are in, and this book is a thick hardback of a good time. A good, scary time. The language in The Ballad of Perilous Graves is unique, the rhythm hypnotic. This book has an ensemble of monsters, zombies and “haints” that roam the city streets seemingly just doing their own thing and the characters are colorful enough to paint the whole town red.
A book of horrors, it centers around New Orleans and Nola with protagonists Casey and Perry being heroes and saving art. I know Alex Jennings as a transplant New Orleans comedian. In the first few pages of the book I began to question my own reality. Was he really from Germany? How did he trap all those hecklers into a hardback book?
As he described a lady speed-walking down St Charles I could remember seeing her from the balcony at Lucky’s. It is frightening how real the magical part of the book feels as compared to the mundane counterpart of Casey’s reality. And Casey’s reality is the one that should be more familiar. There’s a horrid part of me that believes that while we were getting drunk at the open mics there was a whole 'nother world of magic permeating.
Another reason to fear this book is the authentic, unapologetic language. Spooky that a transplant from Germany could portray it so well, but I imagine it’s even scarier for a white person to read. White people should be very afraid to get the voices of this book incorrect. In fact, ask your black friends to read a page or six out loud so you can hear it. If you are hearing minstrel show white people in black face, you’ve gone to the wrong side of the graveyard, my friend. This book is black as hell.
After questioning my reality in the first chapter, I got some air and decided to continue reading at a coffee shop in Metairie. Sitting in the French Press with my lady friend across from me, I began to feel the magic of Nola. To our right sat two women who were white and black respectively, like an inverse of our own table. They represented Nola and New Orleans. As I read, the white lady counseled the black woman and their conversation both took away and added to what I read. The magic of Nola was disgruntled that it had to deal with all of the zombies and haints whilst the New Orleans reality was completely ignoring the magic pitfalls. Nola protects New Orleans whilst New Orleans just neglects and even goes so far as to not believe Nola’s story.
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Review by Byron Broussard
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