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    The Lower Quarter: A Novel
    The Lower Quarter: A Novel
    The Lower Quarter: A Novel
    Ebook314 pages5 hours

    The Lower Quarter: A Novel

    By Elise Blackwell

    4.5/5

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    About this ebook

    A man murdered during Katrina in a hotel room two blocks from her art-restoration studio was closely tied to a part of Johanna’s past that she would like kept secret. But missing from the crime scene is a valuable artwork painted in 1926 by a renowned Belgian artist that might bring it all back.

    An acquaintance, Clay Fontenot, who has enabled a wide variety of personal violations in his life, some of which he has enjoyed, is the scion of a powerful New Orleans family.

    And Marion is an artist and masseuse from the Quarter who has returned after Katrina to rebuild her life.

    When Eli, a convicted art thief, is sent to find the missing painting, all of their stories weave together in the slightly deranged halls of the Quarter.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherUnbridled Books
    Release dateSep 21, 2015
    ISBN9781609531201
    The Lower Quarter: A Novel

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    4.5/5

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    • 4/5
      This is a rather unusual book. It is rather slow to develop, and yet the reader never really gets to know any of the 4 main characters, each of whom have alternating chapters throughout the book. Many details of their past are hinted at but never fully developed. The story takes place in New Orleans right after Katrina, and is about a missing painting, a dead man found in a hotel room just days before Katrina hits, a woman who restores damaged paintings, an art investigator hired to find the missing painting, the son of a well to do New Orleans family, wth very dark tastes and desires, and a woman who helps him achieve those desires. The 4 characters are1. Johanna, who has a dark past in Belgium but now restores paintings in New Orleans.2. Clay, a man from both Johanna's past and currently also in New Orleans. Clay is a sadist you enjoys torturing people online, whom he feels has done him wrong, but also a sadist in his sexual relationships.3. Eli, the art investigator hired to find the missing paining, who has the job as a result of his colorful past, and who set his sights and desires on Johanna.4. Marion who is a bartender, artist, and massage therapist who also helps Clay with his sadistic needs sexually, though these scenes are again mostly hinted at. The bar she works at is across the street from where Johanna, lives and works.This is not a bad book at all, it is just very slow to reveal, what is really going on, uses far too many hints rather than coming right out and saying something, and again oddly doesn't develop most of the characters in a way that allows the reader to bond to any of them.
    • 5/5
      Contrary to another reviewer’s opinion, I thought each character had enough depth for me to feel I knew them, their backgrounds and motivations. It’s a slow burn though, that’s for sure. Nothing really drastic happens, but the atmosphere is tense and at first you don’t know how the four are connected. New Orleans after Katrina was the perfect setting for the events to unfold. Things by their very nature are unsure; buildings are collapsed, services are off line, people have vanished and everyone left struggles to keep body and soul together. Blackwell’s depiction of the Lower Quarter neighborhood around Decatur was really effective. I felt like I would recognize it if I went there. Told in three major sections, each tackles a particular aspect of the plot and the relationships between the characters. Part one is Inherent Vice where we will get our introductions to each damaged participant. Part two is Water Damage where we will understand how that past created the present and what are each person’s remaining options. Part three (final) is Approaches to Cleaning and Restoration where we learn their fates and whether any (or all) find redemption. Each section’s chapters are devoted to a single character at a time and are labeled as such; Johanna, Eli, Clay and Marion. Their stories are revealed by inches and so are their personalities. I really enjoyed the artful vocabulary and oblique ways of illuminating a point. Just enough to give you a flavor, but gives your imagination something to chew on as well.In the end it’s about redemption, reclamation and release. Clay and Eli are looking to be redeemed of past sins and reclaimed to the straight path. Johanna is looking for release from her demons. Marion just wants to ease into a life that isn’t about the utilitarian. She wants to soar. Spoilers -The painting in the vortex of the storm is really a McGuffin. It only serves for things to happen and when J loses it from her own foolishness, I didn’t have any sympathy for her. She should have taken better precautions. That she and Eli have crashed into each other brings an important element of the positive into a novel that could have been a total downer. Clay and Marion have a more transnational relationship and I found her role as go-between with him and Johanna was unexpected. And in a way he serves as go-between with her and Eli. He was one of her original abusers when she was forced into prostitution by the Czech Ladislav. (who is dead and who's missing painting spins the whole plot). Only after he came away from his sadistic encounter with her did he realize she was a slave, not a willing participant. Getting her away from LAs was Clay’s ultimate redemption. Creepy doesn’t begin to describe it. Just what was his father ordering anyway? Did he only send the book to Johanna or did dad get something bound in his skin? There’s just enough information and inference to make it a really unsettling ending.

    Book preview

    The Lower Quarter - Elise Blackwell

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