More of This World or Maybe Another

September 7, 2009
In her debut collection, Johnson maps the lives of several New Orleanians who orbit Delia Delahoussaye's Laundromat on Palmyra Street, where “saying hello and fighting can sound just alike.” The title story finds a stoned teenage Delia longing to kiss a girl named Chuck in the belly of an empty oil tank, a makeshift sense-deprivation chamber that Delia thinks “shakes you loose from yourself.” By the end of the second story, “Keeping Her Difficult Balance,” it's unclear whether Delia will ever escape her childhood identity. “If the Holy Spirit Comes for You” finds her brother, Dooley, nursing a pig his uncles want to slaughter, and the story's moral nuance and consequences echo through “Killer Heart,” where an older Dooley's good deeds lead to tragedy. In “Titty Baby,” a child called Pudge must protect his baby sister from an abusive father. Years later, in “St. Luis of Palmyra,” Pudge's child creates his own criminal code of conduct. Johnson has a deep well of empathy for her characters, and her book's big heart beats strongest when portraying Mid-City's most marginal characters.

September 15, 2009
In nine linked stories, Johnson explores the world and lives of a handful of characters in the Louisiana bayou country and the Mid-City neighborhood of New Orleans. At the center is Delia Delahoussaye, who has teenage longings for girlfriend Charlene; becomes engaged to Charlenes twin brother, Calvin; and breaks up with him for Maggie, with whom she somewhat reluctantly celebrates 20 years together. Delias younger brother Dooley is a teenager forced to kill the damaged young pig hes learned to love, and an adult dealing with a tragedy hes caused. Pudge is taunted as a child and aimless as a returned veteran; and Luis, his son with his childhood sweetheart, deals with a dysfunctional family without knowing who his biological father is. Johnson is pitch-perfect in her spare yet lyrical descriptions, especially those of male-female interactions, how going to war changes soldiers, and how love can be damaged or destroyed, as Delia describes her affair with Maggies affair as a tear in my soul that just wont heal. An insightful literary gem.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2009, American Library Association.)