Goodbye Silver, Silver Cloud — New Orleans Short Stories

Goodbye Silver, Silver Cloud
Lee Meitzen Grue

Stories about New Orleans and the people who live there, people who are free to be original, like jazz. These stories are sad, celebratory and rich with the language and character of people who live in the ornate, musical, urban contraption that fights off swamp--literally and in myth--the city we call New Orleans. A Silver Cloud is a kind of Rolls Royce. Grue married (now separated from) a riverboat pilot, raised three children in the French Quarter, (now a grandmother). She works sometimes as a Tarot reader in the Quarter, loves a good funeral, has an above-ground grave in her side yard, celebrates the pageant, the splendor, the music, crawdads, poboys. Fun.

She knows this world from the inside and loves it even as she demystifies it.

Andre Codrescu, Editor Exquisite Corpse, Commentator, National Public Radio.

This superb collection of stories is a welcome reminder that some of the best American writers of this century have come, and are still coming, from the South. . .A kind of lyrical economy is the guiding principle here. There is no cerebral posturing. Grue understands that fiction is meant to convey meaning primarily through emotional impact. Her fully conscious grasp of technique never becomes mannered or Mannerist; it is rather richly and delightfully modern.

Lawrence Kinsman, Bay Windows

What all of Grue's stories provide is a thrill of discovery; they work out their resolutions believably with plenty of surprises.

Marshall Bruce Gentry, Small Press

Cover art by Moonyeen NcNeilage, 160pgs., ISBN: 0-911051-72-4.