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| Les Martel Brings Cajun Style A**-Kicking to Hollywood Award-winning theater director and veteran author Whitney J. Le Blanc announced today the release of Bodacious Blues, published by Outskirts Press. Three generations of a Louisiana Creole family have struggled amidst blues music, religious conflict, lust, lynching, murder, voodoo and racism. Now, as they come of age, the grandchildren of Martha Broussard realize they must carve their own path through a rapidly changing world. Les Martel finds himself confronted with the whirl of Hollywood where the values are not his values, truth is not his truth and "loyalty" is an unknown word. The final work in this expansive trilogy of the Broussard/Fergerson family saga brings Ann Marie and Les Martel, into a world strikingly different than their ancestors; however they continue the struggle to preserve and live by the values that have been so deeply embedded. Ann Marie Martel becomes the doctor that her grandfather hoped her brother would become. Disappointed in love, she finds contentment and happiness with an older woman-partner, who ironically was her Grandmother Martha's choice to be married into the family. Meanwhile, Les Martel defies all who challenge the man he desires to be. He protests racial intimidation in Estilette, takes on the abusive lover of his Aunt in Chicago, kicks the @ss of his sister's contemptible womanizer boyfriend in Nashville, fights a Paul Bunyan- sized giant in the backwoods of Bemidji, and gives comeuppance to a back stabber in Hollywood. All of his life Les was fascinated by Hollywood, and wanted to become an actor, but when he arrives, he discovers it is nothing like the place he had imagined it to be. He has immediate run-ins with smoke-up-the-@ss, deception, dishonesty, sexual cross-identification, and changing value systems. Consequently he finds that he must readjust his expectations, reexamine his moral commitments and review the process of coming of age in this sordid world. Bodacious Blues is the strong finale to LeBlanc's compelling, blues filled trilogy of the proud Broussard family. Following in the footsteps of Blues in the Wind, which received the Amistad Award in 2003, and Shadows of the Blues in 2006, the completion of this Broussard saga shows that coming of age is never as easy as one would think. Bodacious Blues is available on-line in paperback through Amazon and Barnes and Noble and at www.outskirtspress.com/bookstore for a maximum trade discount in quantities of ten or more. About the author: Louisiana native Whitney J. LeBlanc has been a teacher, writer, producer, set designer and award wining theatre director. He holds a Master's Degree in Theatre Arts Production from the University of Iowa and has spent more than half his fifty year career in Hollywood as a television director. LeBlanc now lives in the Napa valley with his physician wife and writes novels and creates stained glass windows. write your comments about the article :: © 2011 Jazz News :: home page |