Review by Booklist Review
Rhodes' fictional debut has the disorienting force of an earthquake. She moves us almost against our will. At first, we find ourselves leery of her often misunderstood and sensationalized topic, the beliefs and ceremonies of voodoo, but soon realize that we can trust Rhodes to illuminate these mysteries with sensitivity and proud intent. The heroine of her adroit historical novel is Marie Laveau, New Orleans' legendary nineteenth-century voodoo queen. Although few biographical facts are known about Marie, Rhodes has parlayed them into a character of vast dimension and feminine power. Like her grandmother and mother before her, Marie is a voodooienne, a woman visited and possessed by the African god Damballah, and the third Marie Laveau to suffer the consequences of this terrifying blessing in a world poisoned by the sin of slavery. As Rhodes imagines Marie's strange and painful life, from her protected childhood deep in the bayou to her reign as healer in New Orleans, she evokes all the lust, tumult, and cruelty of that race-obsessed city. Deceit and devotion, fear and desire, brutality and grace, incest and miracles, murder and dreams--all facets of decadence and faith, sexuality and spirituality, love and betrayal--play a role in this bewitching, oceanic, and tragic tale. We are as consumed by Rhodes' sublime eloquence and vision as Marie Laveau is by her heritage and indomitable spirit. ~--Donna Seaman
From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.
Review by Publisher's Weekly Review
NEA Fiction Award-winner Rhodes introduces a fearsome heroine and comments on the slave trade in an astute, evocative first novel based on the life of an actual voodoo priestess. From the age of 10, Creole girl Marie Laveau has visions of voodoo rites, yet her grandmother, who raised her, refuses to explain these supernatural occurrences. ``Grandmere'' wants to protect Marie, whose maternal lineage includes many dangerous voodoo queens, but her secretiveness only makes the girl resentful and curious. When they move from their secluded country home to New Orleans in 1819, Marie fulfills her destiny, forsaking her kindly husband on their wedding night to conduct ceremonies in which she's possessed by her dead mother's ghost and by the god Damballah. Rhodes eschews literary aspirations in favor of steamy, violent interludes worthy of a bodice-ripper--an abolitionist who loves Marie from afar, an incestuous relationship between aristocratic twins--but her insightfulness about black heritage, antebellum history and gender roles raises the tale well above the norm. Melodramatic yet mesmerizing, it effectively synthesizes the twin themes of female and African American empowerment. (Oct.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
(c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Review by Library Journal Review
In this first novel, which is based on the life of a 19th-century voodooist, Rhodes attempts to place her subject within a feminist context. Brought to New Orleans from the bayou by her grandmother, a former slave, the fictional Marie is persuaded to marry Jacques, a black sailor, in order to escape her mother's fate. Marie's mother was a voodoo queen who was killed because white people feared her powers. Marie leaves Jacques and falls under the spell of John, a voodoo doctor who beats her and exploits her ability to influence crowds. When Marie recognizes and accepts her powerful voodoo heritage, she is able to free herself from John. While Rhodes effectively captures the erotic and racist climate of 19th-century New Orleans, her plot is overwritten and occasionally repetitive.-- Harriet Gottfried, NYPL (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
(c) Copyright Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Review by Kirkus Book Review
A gripping first novel that limns the life of African-American Marie Laveau, the legendary Voodoo Queen of New Orleans, with all the brooding intensity and latent menace of a summer's night on a lonely bayou. Assembling scattered references to Laveau in Creole folklore, Rhodes not only tells a riveting story but creates a panoramic portrait of New Orleans life in the early 1800's. Like a Dickensian London, the city where Marie confronts her destiny is a vibrant place teeming with Creoles, slaves, free blacks, aristo descendants of the French and Spanish settlers, and Yankees. Marie is a direct descendant of Membe, who, instructed by Damballah, the great snake god, became a slave so that she could mother the god's lost children in America. As Marie lies dying, an old woman revered for her good deeds, she tells her story to lifelong admirer Louis Delavier. Beginning in the middle--since ``the middle is the beginning of everything. Everything spirals from the center. Lies, pain, and loss haunt the future as well as the past''--she describes how she deliberately let her python, with whom she shared the spirit of Damballah, murder John--her Svengali, her nemesis. She then goes on to recall the happiest years of her life--her childhood with grandmother Marie in rural Teché, where on her tenth birthday she not only saw visions but had a frightening encounter with a man who ``smelled of ash and withered leaves.'' The man is John, who, sold into slavery, is interested in voodoo only for his own ends. He later seduces young Marie, exploits her visionary gifts, and ruthlessly destroys all those who thwart him. Marie's murder of John alienates her from her daughter, but--reconciling her Catholic upbringing with voodoo, an affirmative power when properly handled--she becomes a noted healer. All the ingredients of a bewitching read--atmosphere, adventure, mystery, and romance--as well as enough intellectual substance to give it a satisfying heft.
Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
