.jpg)
Meet the author of Louisiana Rogue, Harold
Raley, on Monday, June 17 at 7pm. A native of the Deep South, Harold
Raley spends much time observing people in all levels of society. His thorough
command of English, French, and Spanish greatly helps him understand and write
about the people he moves among. He has traveled widely in the Americas and
Europe and studied the literature, history, and philosophy of France, Spain,
the United States, and England. A published author of a dozen books, Dr.
Raley also has academic credentials and has taught for universities in Texas,
Alabama, and Oklahoma. He and his wife Vicky live in Friendswood, Texas.
Harold Raley's novel tells a delightful
story of a rogue every bit as charming as Tom Jones. I can see Louisiana Rogue
as a first-rate movie with a leading actor --someone like Johnny Depp-- who can
play the full range of human feelings from the outrageous and bizarre to the
touchingly tender and especially to the wildly humorous.
--Carroll
Wilson, writer and editor
Below is an
excerpt from Harold Raley’s wonderful novel Louisiana
Rogue published by Lamar University Press:
Part
I: Touching on Peter’s early years; his parents and family, companions,
education and circumstances; the curious tale of Alain DuClos (Sixfingers) and
his odd demise; his mother’s story; how he avenged himself on brother Henri and
escaped the slavers
Perhaps
none, or few, of my misfortunes about to unfold in this tale would have
happened had I not betrayed my brother Henri to the slavers. Yes, you heard me
aright, dear reader; I delivered my brother into their hands for the lucre of a
few coins, thereby setting in motion a series of events and their consequences
beyond any capability on my part to foresee them. But I will repeat to the end that if the
blame was mine, the fault was his, or so I felt at the time without any
sensible sting of remorse. You may judge
the affair differently but I hope fairly.
At least have the patience to hear how the matter was circumstanced
against me before you issue a condemnation.
The only
likeness ever I saw of my father Joseph Prosper, or Prospère, as it was written
in our French tongue, was a framed artist’s sketch my mother kept hidden in a
drawer by her bed. With cosmetics or crayons she had completed as faithfully as
she could the approximation of his features. Whether in truth he was or not my
father, God alone knows of a certainty, but with this public claim my mother
inscribed and baptized me in St. Martinville parish as Pierre Prospère, adding
as a second name Tourmoulin in memory of a relative, her father, if her account
can be believed.
Picture then, if you will, a gaunt,
long-necked Frenchman sunk into weeds too large for his lean frame; fierce blue
eyes; untrimmed, blond hair---and by the look of it all but virgin to comb and
brush---descending to his shoulders; a high forehead; bristly yellowish
eyebrows; large, wafery ears set at a low, wide angle to his head; ruddy,
freckled skin too fair for browning in the New Orleans climate; an uncommonly
large nose hooked over a thin-lipped mouth etched by exuberant red mustachios;
and a wispy, reddish pointed goatee that completed a long, narrow face. With these features you will have a true
image.
I was
long incuriously ignorant about his origins and whereabouts, for before I
reached the age of memory and sensibility, he fled New Orleans for the Spanish
territory of Coahuila-Texas, clutching a bag of purloined funds, lashing a
lathered stallion, and---so it was rumored---taunting pursuing constables.
No
description could be more unlike my youthful recollections of Mother’s appearance. She was soft of feature and form, saffron in
complexion, and the apex of her fair glory was her waist-long hair that
undulated in lustrous and luscious ebony over her smooth arms and shoulders.
Her dark eyes sparkled as her high merriment and extravagant charms earned her
entry into the passions and purses of old New Orleans. Her voice was melodious with the accents and
words of the languages we all spoke and commingled with casual fluency: French,
Spanish, and Old Quarter English.
Though
beyond the meridian of her life at the time of this telling, yet she retained
charms sufficient in their effect to rouse the patrons to whistling, thunderous
applause when she played the harp and sang French and Spanish songs. At times
in a more ebullient spirit she danced Spanish boleros and fandangos and French
contra dances and waltzes with selected partners in Père LaChaise’s venerable
cabaret or, later, in Madame Sonnier’s more raucous Sojourner Inn and Tavern.
She had a passion for the minuet learned in her years in St. Martinville but
for want of accomplished partners and stately locale seldom danced it in New
Orleans.
On fair
afternoons as she customarily issued forth into the streets of the Vieux Carrè
men halted to view her passing, hats doffed and hearts secretly or openly
offered to her feminine splendor. As she glided by staring male onlookers,
serene in her seductive beauty, skirts and petticoats a-rustle in short,
form-hugging and puffless cirsaca and matching casaquin, many an angry lady
berated husband or companion for his helpless bewitchment. Outwardly
indifferent to their silent or spoken provocations, which she accepted as the
natural homage men pay great beauty, yet she seemed to enter into a tacit
complicity with each gentleman by leaving him with the singular impression of
having been favored by a fleeting smile, a subtle hand signal, or an inviting
tilt of her head. As a poet of the
English tongue has sung:
Grace was in all her steps, heav’n in
her eye,
In every gesture dignity and love.
.jpg)
