Babylon Rolling
A Novel
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5.0 • 1 Rating
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- $9.99
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- $9.99
Publisher Description
Ariel May and her husband, Ed, have just moved to New Orleans with their two small children. Their neighbor, Fearius, is a fifteen-year-old just out of juvenile detention. Across the street, an elderly couple, the Browns, are only trying to pass their days in peace, while Philomenia Beauregard de Bruges, a longtime resident and “Uptown lady,” peers through her curtains at the East Indian family next door.With one random accident, a scene of horror across front lawns, the whole neighborhood converges on the sidewalk and the residents of Orchid Street are thrown together, for better and for worse.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Two visions of New Orleans: one you may recognize, the other hopefully not.Babylon RollingAmanda Boyden. Pantheon, (320p) Former contortionist and trapeze artist Boyden (Pretty Little Dirty) invokes an array of New Orleans voices on Uptown's Orchid Street. Daniel Harris, a smalltime teenage drug dealer who goes by "Fearius," hopes "oday gone be his day" and the coming Hurricane Ivan will drive junkies into a stockpiling frenzy. Although his voice more often mimics street patois than evokes his character, language crystallizes with character in his white neighbor, the 57-year-old Philomenia Beauregard de Bruges, who seeks to divest her neighborhood of undesirables. Orchid Street's Minneapolis transplants, Ed Flank and Ariel May, meanwhile, struggle to maintain a family in an American Babylon that batters and woos with delights and disasters. Into the mix move the Guptas, an Indian family who have a difficult time breaking the ice. Though it could lose some extraneous passages, the book's nuanced story of people who "choose to live... inside the big lasso of river" reveals a side of the Crescent City not often seen in fiction.
Customer Reviews
Fantastic novel
This is, by far one of the best books I have ever read. Boyden dives deep into each characters thoughts, fears, insecurities, joys, pains and sorrow. The way she tells a story raves the reader on edge and wanting more. The story has various plots and sub stories but it maintains one common theme of general human nature. I've given this as gifts and the recipients love it each time.