JUST OFF ELYSIAN FIELDS

In this grim debut novel, lost souls search for one another—and themselves—in the post-Katrina South.

New Orleanian Antoine Joubert, after losing his love in an accident, spent the better part of a decade in prison. The guilt-riddled 30-something ex-con was drinking himself to death until his neighbor Pharaoh set him straight. Now his elderly friend needs Antoine’s help. Pharaoh, who may be dying, wants to find his estranged 19-year-old daughter, Maybelle, last seen in Mississippi. Antoine heads to Canton, Mississippi, armed with only a photo, to find a woman he’s never met. Maybelle ran off on her own not long after Hurricane Katrina devastated New Orleans. Much like Antoine and her father, Maybelle can’t escape her troubled, violent past. Her friends are bad news, especially one guy who drives a white Continental. Antoine starts tracking him, which may get Maybelle and him into a world of trouble. Thomas’ dark, often insightful tale shifts among Antoine’s, Maybelle’s, and Pharaoh’s perspectives. The trio is familiar with violence; Maybelle’s mom once brutally stabbed Pharaoh, who had already suffered a harrowing Vietnam experience. Despite this, there’s more than a few signs of hope. Antoine and Maybelle, for example, both fight to overcome their guilt and grief by conversing with dead loved ones. In the same vein, Pharaoh aims his narration at “Baby Maybelle”—his way of coping with his sordid history. The prose is often memorable and understated: “I just walked that circle, round and round St. Claude, and round and round the Ninth Ward, and over time I guess it just started wearing on me.”

A somber, profound story of family and redemption.