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Voodoo Dreams: A Novel of Marie Laveau
Voodoo Dreams: A Novel of Marie Laveau
Voodoo Dreams: A Novel of Marie Laveau
Audiobook20 hours

Voodoo Dreams: A Novel of Marie Laveau

Rating: 3.5 out of 5 stars

3.5/5

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About this audiobook

Spanning six decades of the 1800s, this mesmerizing story is a fictional biography of Marie Laveau--one of the most haunting characters in New Orleans' history. Part of a long line of voodoo priestesses and healers, Marie tells of the mystery, passion, and violence that pattern her life. Like her grandmother, Marie sees visions from an early age. She never knew her mother, who practiced a spiritualism so potent she was murdered by those who feared her. When Marie becomes a healer, she discovers a supernatural force that can channel the power of her ancestors. But it is a ferocious force driven by both life and death. Author Jewell Parker Rhodes has been awarded a National Endowment for the Arts and is a professor of American literature and creative writing at Arizona State University.
LanguageEnglish
Release dateNov 15, 2010
ISBN9781449836818
Voodoo Dreams: A Novel of Marie Laveau
Author

Jewell Parker Rhodes

Dr. Jewell Parker Rhodes is the author of six adult novels: Voodoo Dreams, Magic City, Douglass’ Women, Season, Moon, and Hurricane, as well as the memoir Porch Stories: A Grandmother’s Guide to Happiness and two writing guides, Free within Ourselves: Fiction Lessons for Black Authors and The African American Guide to Writing and Publishing Nonfiction. Jewell is also the author of seven books for youth, including the New York Times bestsellers Ghost Boys and Black Brother, Black Brother. She has won the American Book Award, the Black Caucus of the American Library Award for Literary Excellence, and the Jane Addams Peace Association Book Award. Jewell is the founding artistic director of the Virginia G. Piper Center for Creative Writing and narrative studies professor and Virginia G. Piper endowed chair at Arizona State University. She was awarded an honorary doctorate of humane letters from Carnegie-Mellon University. She lives in Seattle, Washington.

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Rating: 3.5888888444444444 out of 5 stars
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  • Rating: 2 out of 5 stars
    2/5
    Marie Laveau was a powerful, legendary figure in 19th Century New Orleans--despite being a "woman of color" in that day and age in the South. A fascinating figure, but not a fascinating book, I think because Marie never comes into focus for me or feels convincing. This Marie is too passive, too much a victim whose fate is determined by others, and the story doesn't fit with what I know of Laveau, the daughter of a white planter and free Creole born in the French Quarter who married Jacques Paris at twenty-five--not sixteen. I think something in the style also put me off. The prose is often sensuous and the setting rendered vividly, but she bounces around perspectives, "head-hopping" and has way too much fondness for the rhetorical question. But I think that's rather minor compared to my feeling that the character Rhodes created bears no resemblance at all to a historical figure in what is supposed to be a biographical novel.