The Books: “The Ritz Of The Bayou – The New Orleans Adventures Of A Young Novelist Covering The Trials Of The Governor Of Louisiana, with digressions on smoldering nightclubs, jazz-crazed bars, and other aspects of life in the tropic zone” (Nancy Lemann)

Daily Book Excerpt: Adult fiction: (although this book is actually reportage – oh, well)

The Ritz Of The Bayou – The New Orleans Adventures Of A Young Novelist Covering The Trials Of The Governor Of Louisiana, with digressions on smoldering nightclubs, jazz-crazed bars, and other aspects of life in the tropic zone by Nancy Lemann

This hysterical book is very hard to find. I found my copy, randomly, at The Strand. It still has a dust jacket. I don’t think it’s even in print anymore. Nancy Lemann had come out with her first novel, Lives of the Saints (excerpt here). It wasn’t a major hit, but it got some wonderful reviews – Lemann was compared to Eudora Welty, her book was reviewed in The New York Times – and so she got some cache. There was a trial going on in the mid 80s of the corrupt governor of Louisiana – and Vanity Fair sent Lemann to go report on it, and send back dispatches. A la Dominick Dunne’s fun columns on various trials in that magazine. Lemann is from New Orleans. She writes as an insider of that particular town. She obviously loves it dearly. Her thing is comparison, meaning: New Orleans’ vibe as opposed to, say, New York’s vibe. Or other places. It is in the comparison that the truth can be experienced. At least that seems to be Lemann’s view – all of her books have that geographical comparison thematic structure. In The Fiery Pantheon (excerpt here), Grace Stewart and her family go to Istanbul, and sight-see. Grace cannot but help compare the Bosphorus to other rivers she has known, and the weather to the tropic air she knows so well. It’s all about comparison. She can’t do it any other way. Many people can see things just as they are, in and of themselves. Lemann is not one of those people. Her writing always depends on the focal point of HOME – which, for her, is New Orleans – the green balmy tropics. Everything in the world must be compared to that. Not in a snotty way, she’s not like: can anything ever measure up? She’s not a regional snob. It’s just that New Orleans has such a deep groove in her heart, that she sees it everywhere – in the spring air in New York, in the slow-moving Bosphorus, whatever.

Lemann reported on the trial of the Governor, but she also reported on all of the “offstage” shenanigans – politicos and journalists drinking themselves into a stupor every night, the humor in the courtroom, her human observations – all very Lemann-esque. She’s one of THE writers of New Orleans – she just gets that town, and has made it her life’s work (or so it seems) to put it and its ineffable qualities into writing. This book – with its hilarious title – is the story of that trial. Because it’s Nancy Lemann, it’s a small slice of humanity, with dudes in seersucker suits, and cocktails in seedy bars … she notices everything, and reports it – in that very Lemann way. It is SO worth a read if you’re interested. I am so glad I found it. (Now, of course, with the Internet – you can order it … but back in the mid 90s, before I was online – you were shit out of luck with books like this. You could scour second-hand book stores, etc., – and that is what I did. I pounced on it when I found it like a tiger. I was thrilled!)

Here’s an excerpt from early on in the book. It gives you a flavor of the whole thing. To me, it’s hypnotic. Lemann actually does know quite a bit about the law – lawyers frequent her books more than any other profession. And so she does, indeed, report on the daily trial, what happens, who says what. But she also reports on the behavior – of the judges, the spectators, the other journalists, the Governor himself … It’s a wonderful little book.

EXCERPT FROM The Ritz Of The Bayou – The New Orleans Adventures Of A Young Novelist Covering The Trials Of The Governor Of Louisiana, with digressions on smoldering nightclubs, jazz-crazed bars, and other aspects of life in the tropic zone by Nancy Lemann

The thing I love about New Orleans is that it is always deserted. This especially after being in New York. If there’s one thing we don’t have in New Orleans, it’s hubbub In New York you wait in long lines to go to a movie. In New Orleans you and your date are the only ones in the theater – except for one elderly couple from Metairie, maybe. The restaurant at the Lafayette Hotel – deserted. The post office – lines? are you kidding? – deserted. Julia Street – deserted. And when in New York you find yourself trapped on a Friday evening between five and seven wondering if the step should actually be taken of going over to Grand Central to wait in a huge mob to find a cab, in New Orleans at that hour there wouldn’t be another person on the street, except for one fellow in a seersucker suit. He will be walking slowly down Gravier Street, smoking a cigar. This is peace. Slow time.

Peace is not a thing that can be easily found. I know a great man who says it is not to be found at all. It’s just not in the bargain, he says. But I found it in brief terms, in my New Orleans, when it was balmy and eighty-two degrees and everything was green, among the eccentric palms. After these years in New York it was sweet to return, at the end of August, but I did not know that I would remain there, at the trial and in the legislature, for almost one whole year. You spend a year inside a court of law, and it has various effects, and is not easily forgotten.

The trial of the Governor, for racketeering, fraud, and bribery, was conducted in a New Orleans courtroom by a crowd of drawling white-haired gents. It was there that I obtained some education of the world, of politics and men and morals. One deception can be traded for another, greatness and betrayal lie beside each other closely intertwined. The truth, in the end, I think, is likely to be found in a courtroom, but so is a great deal of “human frailty”. There is a lot of human frailty floating around.

There is so much human frailty floating around that it is a dramatic thing to see, for better and for worse, and I have to say that there, among the human frailty, I found something I had ceased to expect, and it was written in dramatic script, when otherwise, when it was over, life was written in small print. It is not that I advocate human frailty, but I had never seen so much of it, all at once, and it was a sort of breathtaking spectacle.

The law can be evaded; it is something some dance on the edge of. Some call it fraud, this long intricate equation which it took a year to tell, a case tried twice, and at great length. You would have great contempt for due process to argue that a question of law wasn’t settled. As for human frailty, that is another matter.

***

But I went across the lake when it was balmy and eighty-two degrees and in the middle of a raging crisis, the eye of a storm, found this. My heart was back in business when I saw all that human frailty. Among the green palms on the raging lake. There were many actors on the stage, and for myself, I had hardly seen such characters as these, whose drama was conducted for one year.

***

Now if you want to go to the legislature, you have to see Rudy, in order to get in. Rudy does not have a title, but he has a function.

A political columnist first took me to the legislature; he took me to a room in the basement to obtain a press pass.

“Go to the dining room and ask Rudy. He’s sitting just inside the door,” said the Sergeant-at-Arms. So we went to the dining room, and just inside the door, four sleazeballs were sitting at a corner table smoking cigars.

“Rudy?” said the political columnist.

“Yeh,” said one of them, and the political columnist lodged his request to obtain a press pass for me.

Rudy rolled his cigar around in his mouth. He gave me the once-over.

“Tell ’em Rudy says it’s okay,” he uttered, in his gravel voice.

Rudy sets the tone.

***

The Pope was scheduled to come to New Orleans, later in the year. A local columnist joked that in the morning the Pope would hear the Governor’s confession; then he would go to a luncheon. Then he would hear the Governor’s confession; then he would go to dinner. Then he would hear more of the Governor’s confession; etc. No matter how long he listened, he could not hear the Governor’s whole confession, as it would take too long.

Ordinarily I don’t spend quite a lot of time looking at the dark side. Politics is not the place to look for saints. It’s not exactly the blue vault of heaven there, in politics. But it holds a certain fascination. There is a connection, between the dark side and the light. One without the other could not cause a crisis to convene. It was bigger than I was, and it was bigger than those who conducted it. That was the interesting thing about it, the way I looked at it.

***

The lofty architecture of the capitol describes a megalomaniac grandeur not seen in most state legislatures. It is indeed the work of a megalomaniac, Huey Long. It is an atmosphere indeed that makes you want to idolize someone, presumably the Governor, as in the case of Huey Long, it speaks of his ambition, and lays that burden on his office.

The Senators were joshing in the hall, at the opening of a night session of the legislature, amid the glare of television cameras, against the handsome marble and ornate columns and engravings in the architecture. Fox McKeithen in the hall described how his daddy, a former governor, was Earl Long’s protege.

A black Senator gave a convocation. “Just as the walls of Jerusalem fell down, the ways of this state are in need of repair.”

A few more legislators made brief speeches. The arrival of the Governor was anticipated, to open the special session.

“Will the committee from the Senate please escort the Governor into the House of Representatives,” said the Speaker.

There was a smattering of applause. Some time passed.

“Will the committee please escort the Governor–” said the Speaker — but the Governor was joshing in the hall with Sixty Rayburn. Then the Governor emerged into the House and took his place and gave his speech, opening with several droll stories, which included a recap of his conversation in the hall with Sixty. The Governor seemed to be obsessed with the reporters, and quoted from many newspaper articles. He read some facts and figures, in his Cajun twang, from his proposal to solve the gigantic deficit. But he was in a contrite mode, as his trial was then behind him, and when you spend a year inside a court of law, as I have said, I do not think it leaves you quite the same.

The Governor recommended a lottery for the state, but everyone was against him. “It should not be an occasion for this anguish and wringing of hands,” said the Governor, with a good deal of sangfroid. “Even that citadel of learning Harvard University,” he advised, “was originally funded in part by the Massachusetts lottery.” To pronounce the name of Harvard, he used a mock-pretentious accent, to indicate how hifalutin the Yankees are – which has long been a source of underdog defiance and anti-intellectual joshing. But among the palm trees and the heat, education of any kind takes on a somewhat different tone, and is a somewhat different thing. And there are many things to be learned there, of a different kind.

***

The Southerners are jaded and cynical, for this is a region accustomed to intrigue, and to an old defeat. A Washington columnist went to New Orleans and heard the Governor give a speech. He reported the many jokes that were told, concluding that here politics is still in business. The familiar theory is that the people of Louisiana would rather be entertained than served with ethics. As has been observed about our Governor, it isn’t what he says that matters to the people, but the style in which he says it. And he said it with purple and gold dinner jackets, in a Cajun accent, with champagne corks popping. I think it is accurate to say that the people have a high tolerance for “human frailty”, if not a special fondness for it, evidenced by the jurty, and the human frailty argument was often used by the defense lawyers in the case.

As with Earl and Huey Long, Louisiana governors have amassed an excess degree of power in their offices, unlike the governors of other states. As a political columnist has said, in Louisiana we elect our governors to be kings. The nuttier the better, that they should then turn into megalomaniacs, provide public entertainment, and have public breakdowns. One recent governor had been a decent, honest man; he was considered to be too dull. The people re-elected the present Governor instead.

The Prosecutor was not winning when he moralized about the Governor, who is known for gambling, womanizing, and risque bon mots, for people hold few things as dear as those.

***

The alleged crime was the Governor’s making $10 million among himself and his cronies, the seven other defendants in the case, through influence and knowledge in state business and state programs – the hospital development business, to be exact; at least half of the deals were made while the Governor was out of office, between his second and third terms. Whether you see this as good or bad depends on your own moral vision. The jury thought it was only mildly bad; though to be more accurate about it, I think they thought it was good. The Governor was born on a sharecropper’s farm in a humble Louisiana town, and ended up a millionaire in the opulent imitation antebellum plantation which is the Governor’s Mansion on a verdant lawn in Baton Rouge, and this man’s rise was a thing that the people respected. He who rises from a humble position to an exalted one is always a subject of drama. It was often said of the Governor during the trial that his was a misspent life – for he has the “political talent” and charisma to lead the people and the legislature, but he does not always use this to the best result. The spirit’s willing but the flesh is weak.

***

Power affects all men holding it in a certain definite way. It is not saying that a man may not have the strength to fulfill a vision, if he had the genius to have the vision; or equally, that a man who has a great vision will have the strength to carry it out. It is also not saying that if you had palm fronds painted on the ceiling of your legislature, and Rudy for the Sergeant-at-Arms, it wouldn’t drive you batty, too. I cannot give a picture that is black and white. “But I don’t think politics is the answer,” I said to the courtroom existentialist, “do you?”

“Well, I guess no one really has the answers,” said the courtroom existentialist. I didn’t really mean to get in such an existential mode, but that is the way with the courtroom existentialist, who then went across the street to grade the oysters at The Pearl. Why, you may ask, does he grade the oysters? Why, indeed. Because it is how he brings order out of chaos, which is why he loves the law, because it does the same.