Bitter-Sweet Swamp

As I read the title, Swamp Songs, I envisioned creatures lurking in thick dark muck: specifically long reptilian beasts humming sorrowful hymns. As I delved through the pages of this treat for the senses, I was both surprised and entertained. My inclination to the word "swamp" led me to expect stories of place only, but as Swamp Songs focuses in on New Orleans it also focuses in on a community, a family, and the souls the hide behind masks and masquerades.

The prose seduced and piqued my curiosity about the place and characters in the tale. The charcaters were the life of the tale and revealed so much about the place and each other. The character that I responded to the most was Francois. In the chapter, Controlling Francois, he is seen as an unruly and sometimes violent teenager. However, the writer comments, "But things could have easily been reversed, and I will never know what force moved me into one direction and him in another." Therefore, the writer admits her own shortcomings and honestly reflects that she could have been Francois, and he could have been in college. Also, the writer comments of her relationship to Francois as such, "that love of the needle is somewhere in all of us, I know why he likes this song, and I know why I went to the trouble to learn it. It is a secret we share." This secret is their connection of learning that they secretly reflect each other's personalities. Francois wild, but looking for peace and purpose, and the writer contained, but looking for a release that will allow her to express her innermost and wild being. Francois and the writer are extensions of one another, which is apparent in most families or close relationships. We morph in and out of one another.

The masks and carnivals were intriguing: the former concealed flesh and bone while the latter induced freedom of sexuality and inner selves. Innerselves that people carried around inside and waited to unleash like restless spirits, and until then it haunted them. Inner selves that could consume you if the mask wasn't taken off. Innerselves that became the outer. The writer's father was a character who was haunted by his innerself. The depiction of him dressing like a woman reflected his attempt and desire to understand the being (the writer's mother) in which he hurt so much 9the being within himself taht he hurt so much). Maybe pretending to be woman was a way to redeem himself of his sins committed against the writer's mother and himself. Furthermore, carnival season was a time where the writer's father could relax into comfort--his true self.

The voice and character of the writer is strong and very present throughout this mournful song of swamps, gumbo, needles, shiny things, and masks. Even though, the writer's presence is accesible it is not overtaking the tales. It is as if the writer is holding the reader's hand while pointing and saying, "Look, this is what happened." I enjoyed the scenes as they were intune with my senses amd emotions. Lastly, the challenge of revealing one's own family life (inner and outer) is a task and burden to bare. However, it is my sense that swamp songs has a writer who has accepted the bitter that needed to be sweetened and removed the masks that needed to be taken off.