“How much is this storm going to wash away? No matter what we do, we’re going to lose. So, you’ve got to be practical about it. Save what you can, and the rest – write it off. The water wants it? Let the water take it.”
In a note to her readers, this novel’s author mentions that she spent twenty years writing this story. It is evident. The research. The tapestry of words that she has woven – each word falling perfectly in place – telling the story of the Acadian people and their Cajun descendants who inhabit the bayous on the Louisiana Gulf Coast. The book is layered with history and tradition and culture. With environmental forces, both manmade and those of Mother Nature herself. With family and friend and community relationships. Throughout all this complicated layering, life on the Gulf coast becomes alive.
Right from the beginning, Soileau sets the tone. Her opening salvo comes in the form of the hurricane that devastated a cheniere (ridge) off Grand Isle, Louisiana in 1893. Once it had finished its wrath, more than half of the island’s adults and almost all of the children, nearly 800 people, had perished. All but a few of the homes and businesses had been washed away.
Then she continues.
Through the eyes of two main characters, the devastation of Hurricane Katrina is witnessed as they drive through the streets of New Orleans. The erosion of the Gulf Coast is easily explained as what was once land is now sea. Louisiana politics and the oil industry are put on display. And a catastrophic environmental event – the explosion of an offshore oil rig – with its devastating effects on both the people and land of the Gulf Coast are felt. As cleanup operations are under way, the community braces for another hit as a Category 4 hurricane is set to make land. Soileau explains life on the bayous itself.
The central figures of this story are modern day Cajuns. These Cajuns are the inheritors of cultural debts forced upon them when British forces physically removed their Acadian ancestors from New France, Canada. Their culture, their language, their spirit are at the heart of this book. So is the ecological life of the bayous themselves. Characters such as the Nigerian priest, the Vietnamese shrimper also play roles in describing the rich heritage of this Louisiana community.
Despite the many trials the characters in this novel endure, this book is neither depressing nor distressing. There are laugh out loud moments. The characters are warm and honest and real. The reader silently, perhaps complicitly, accepts the fates of these characters understanding the way of life on the Gulf which Soileau has brilliantly portrayed. She has truly captured the soul of south Louisiana both in terms of its people and its unforgiving terrain.
Most importantly, through her words, the writer has invoked the spirit and absolute resilience of those who live along Louisiana’s Gulf Coast. Those who live in The Boot overall.
