{"id":3273,"date":"2024-10-17T08:29:34","date_gmt":"2024-10-17T15:29:34","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lindabrinson.com\/?p=3273"},"modified":"2024-10-17T08:29:34","modified_gmt":"2024-10-17T15:29:34","slug":"tough-times-in-the-big-easy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lindabrinson.com\/?p=3273","title":{"rendered":"Tough times in the Big Easy"},"content":{"rendered":"

Bob Moyer reviews a thought-provoking, haunting novel about justice – and lack of it – in New Orleans.<\/p>\n

Reviewed by Robert P. Moyer<\/p>\n

SERAPHIM. By Joshua Perry. Melville Press. 272 pages. $18.99<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>In post-Katrina New Orleans, a woman, a local legend, is shot and killed on the street. Sixteen-year-old Robert is arrested and confesses. Except it\u2019s not feasible, and his lawyer doesn\u2019t believe him. And that\u2019s the beginning of this atmospheric, moving condemnation of the corrupt judicial system of New Orleans.<\/p>\n

Ben Alder and his partner Boris are carpetbagging lawyers descending upon New Orleans to \u201chelp\u201d after Katrina. They join the public defenders\u2019 office, where they \u201c\u2026thought they could do better, new organs transplanted into the sick body with no mind paid to the toxicity and rejection.\u201d Encountering a corrupt system, fickle judges and an overflowing docket, they must choose their battles carefully. Robert is one of those battles.<\/p>\n

Ben and Boris employ legal and illegal, ethical and unethical means to extract Robert from the system. They succeed only in enmeshing him further. Ben, a dropout rabbinical student, draws parallels throughout the story with his religious training, \u201c\u2026that far from justice the law is instead merely ritual. He knew that he was a celebrant in a religion without faith.\u201d\u00a0He likens the confusion of his clients listening to the language of justice with Jewish congregants and their relationship with Talmudic interpretations. As he labors to solve the mystery of whether Robert committed the murder (with no help from Robert), the tragedy takes on even more Biblical proportions, Ben equating his role as Isaiah with the fallen angels, the seraphim. The tragic arc of the story delivers Robert further into the system, and moves Ben from hopeful hero to perpetrator.<\/p>\n

The author carries us deep into devastated neighborhoods, abandoned buildings, abandoned lives illustrating that New Orleans, a \u201c\u2026shallow city, has deep subbasements of cruelty and fear. It grows squarely over its foundations.\u201d\u00a0 \u00a0New Orleans, \u201c\u2026a city that suddenly stopped getting bigger but never stopped pulling apart,\u201d defeats Ben, who packs his carpetbag and drives off at the end of the book. A haunting read, Seraphim<\/em> will leave images in the reader\u2019s mind long after the book is finished, and long before any of the inherent injustices are remedied.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Bob Moyer reviews a thought-provoking, haunting novel about justice – and lack of it – in New Orleans. Reviewed by Robert P. Moyer SERAPHIM. By Joshua Perry. Melville Press. 272 pages. $18.99 In post-Katrina New Orleans, a woman, a local legend, is shot and killed on the street. Sixteen-year-old Robert is arrested and confesses. Except […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1074,426,4,14],"tags":[1423,1424,1422],"class_list":["post-3273","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-legal-thriller","category-popular-fiction","category-southern-fiction","category-thriller-suspense","tag-joshua-perry","tag-new-orleans-fiction","tag-seraphim"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lindabrinson.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3273","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lindabrinson.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lindabrinson.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lindabrinson.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lindabrinson.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3273"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/lindabrinson.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3273\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3275,"href":"https:\/\/lindabrinson.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3273\/revisions\/3275"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lindabrinson.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3273"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lindabrinson.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3273"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lindabrinson.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3273"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}