Oyster: A Novel
Much feted for his debut collection of stories, The Torturer's  Apprentice, Biguenet follows up with a steamy first novel set on  the Louisiana coast. The Petitjeans and the Bruneaus are rival  oyster fishing families in Plaquemines Parish in 1957,  struggling to survive in an environment rapidly falling prey to  petroleum companies and their ravaging of swamp and bayou  ecosystems. As it gets more difficult to hang on economically,  old families begin to slip. The Petitjean family, headed by  Felix, has reluctantly turned to "Horse" Bruneau for a loan.  Desperate for cash, Felix and his wife, Mathilde, approve  Horse's plan to marry their daughter, Therese. Therese scotches  that plan by luring Horse to the Petitjean property for a  supposed midnight tryst, then murdering him. When Horse's body  turns up in a trawler's net, his sons Darryl ("Little Horse")  and Ross (with their gentler brother, Rusty, looking on in  horror) murder Therese's brother, Alton, who they blame for  Horse's murder since nobody even considers that a slip of a girl  like Therese could kill the powerful Horse. Darryl has always  hated Alton, anyway, suspecting (rightly, as it turns out) that  Alton is his half brother the fruit of an affair between  Mathilde and Horse. After the murder, Sheriff Christovich, an  old beau of Mathilde's, manipulates Darryl into letting Rusty  work for the Petitjeans, hoping Rusty will talk. But it is  Therese who exacts vengeance on the Bruneau house with the  implacability of a Plaquemines Lady Macbeth. While Biguenet  makes the Bruneaus, except for Rusty, a bit too villainous and  Therese a bit too clever for plausibility's sake, his debut  satisfyingly penetrates the curtain of gumbo clich  surrounding  Cajun culture. (June) Forecast: Booksellers may expect to build handily on the success  of The Torturer's Apprentice with this juicy follow-up and  should certainly capitalize on the novel's regional appeal.Copyright 2002 Reed Business Information, Inc.--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.