Nancy Lemann, _Lives of the Saints_

 ANOTHER FINE NOVEL set in New Orleans to shelve near Walker Percy’s The Moviegoer and John Kennedy Toole’s A Confederacy of Dunces. I had not heard of it before it was republished by New York Review Books, but apparently it has produced a slowly-growing cult reputation since its original publication in 1985.

The novel takes place over about a year in what seems to be the 1970s. It’s nearly plotless, in a good way; the novel consists of short vignettes from the point of view of narrator Louise Brown. Louise is a dry, disenchanted observer of the moneyed old New Orleans families among whom she grew up. “It is this passing parade which I chronicle,” she remarks at one point.

 The voice Lemann conjures for Louise is the most memorable element of the novel. It is a bit like the conversation of a person who should not have another drink, mainly due to a tendency to repeat words: “Maybe Claude would break my heart, and it would not really be so outlandish. Hearts have been known to break. Hearts have been known to break before. Maybe he would break my heart, and then I would have Tragic Dignity.”

While the recurring phrases give Lemann’s prose the roll of speech, the capitalizing of “Tragic Dignity” is like a little eye-roll letting you know that she doesn’t want you to think she’s being melodramatic. She’s not asking or hoping for your sympathy. I found myself sympathizing all the same.

Claude is Claude Collier, brilliant and charismatic but self-sabotaging—he reminded me of Charles Stringham in Anthony Powell’s A Dance to the Music of Time, but I bet you can provide your own examples—and yes (spoiler alert), he does break her heart.  His own heart is already broken due to the accidental death (spoiler alert) of his younger brother, Saint (his actual name is Saint Louis Collier). Claude’s grief makes it understandable that the relationship with Louise, whom he is certainly fond of, never quite gets off the ground. Given that he not only breaks her heart but drives her crazy (“‘I’M CALM!’  I screamed”), maybe that’s for the best.

I learned from Michael Gorra’s review in NYRB that Nancy Lemann is the sister of well-known journalist Nicholas Lemann, which made me wonder how Nicholas would have written about these people. Maybe he has, somewhere.