The Unnatural History of Cypress Parish by Elise Blackwell

Louisiana has always seemed like another country to me, not a part of the United States. No matter if it’s a travel program, news footage or a novel, it’s so exotic; the food, the traditions, the holidays, it’s all so much more colorful and makes the rest of America look bland. Elise Blackwell’s novel The Unnatural History of Cypress Parish follows this pattern. Even the division of the book into 3 parts named Backwater, Crest and Crevasse add to the flavor.

Written as a fictional memoir of Louis Proby who recounts a year as a teenager living in a small town near New Orleans when the Mississippi River flooded in 1927. It is the literary equivalent of a soft focus photo. I struggled with this at first, waiting for things to become more defined, but then realized it added to the realism, with everything filtered through the haziness of memories. That aspect is continued in the non-linear telling of the story, the narrator trying to make sense of the mysterious relations between adults and how it affects the world on any scale.These other people include not only his family, who remain rather vague despite some tantalizing hints of eccentric or endearing personalities. But also those who Louis reacts to in either an emotional way (Nanette, his girlfriend or Gaspar, the artist) or a purely surface manner, such as his father’s boss, Charles Seagist. This latter has a huge impact on his life after he takes a job as Seagist’s driver. Louis wrestles with his conscience as he tries to balance his ambitions with his family responsibilities which leaves him with the twin strands of guilt & regret that underline the entire novel. At the end he says “But we never get to see that other roll of the dice, that other arrangement of matter, and so we can deceive ourselves into thinking that things happen for a reason, that they turn out as they are meant to.”

Interspersed throughout the book are brief pieces written almost like newspaper articles or encyclopedia entries about such diverse subjects as armadillos, Pliny the Elder, a leper hospital, Huey Long & cypress trees. Each of these topics connect to the story, no matter how distant it appears. I really liked those interludes & always learned something new. I don’t know if I can say I liked the book, though I certainly don’t dislike it, but I was disappointed in it. There were so many things left unexplained, incidents that were mentioned that led nowhere, characters that I would’ve liked to have gotten to know better, but never did. Despite it’s many flaws, it did leave a strong impression on me, which in itself is a compliment.

Unbridled Books 2007 210 pp. ISBN 13: 978-1-932961