cover image The Wrecked, Blessed Body of Shelton LaFleur

The Wrecked, Blessed Body of Shelton LaFleur

John Gregory Brown. Houghton Mifflin Harcourt (HMH), $21.95 (0pp) ISBN 978-0-395-72988-5

His first novel, the praised Decorations in a Ruined Cemetery, established Brown as an extraordinarily gifted observer of Southern society, in particular of the nuances of racial relationships. His second book is a sensitive, richly atmospheric, almost gothic tale, as seen through the eyes of its eponymous black narrator. Shelton La Fleur recounts the mysteries of his sorrowful life as he perceived them as a child, raised by a crippled white woman whose father brought him as a baby to their mansion in the Garden District of New Orleans. A fall from a tree one day when he is eight ends Shelton's privileged existence. Struck mute by the shock, he is sent, limbs permanently twisted, to a black orphans' home, where he exists in limbo and misery for the next five years. After he gathers the courage to run away, he is rescued by Minou Parrain, who takes Shelton to his home in the city's black district. Minou has a mysterious link to Shelton's past, and from him the boy eventually learns not only the secret of his identity and the sources of artistic creativity but also about the bonds of love and the possibility of grace. Indeed, the narrative is constructed as a fable of a hero who falls from grace and struggles back toward the light. Shelton becomes a painter, able to symbolize his experiences in his work and to reflect what he learns about the roles forced on the black community by poverty and prejudice, and anger and shame. Brown's touch here is not as sure as it was in his debut: the pace is initially slow; Shelton's voice is not always convincing; the prose is sometimes self-indulgent; and the final revelation of the circumstances of Shelton's ""adoption'' tests credulity. Once the momentum builds, however, Brown adroitly foils readers' expectations three times in quick succession. There is enough imaginative power in this tale to redeem its flaws. Author tour. (Apr.)