The Grandissimes: A Story of Creole Life by George Washington Cable

George Washington Cable sets this story of creole life in the city of New Orleans at the traumatic moment when Napoleon sold his North American holdings to the United States. With the use of Joseph Frowenfield, a German-American who immigrates to New Orleans and promptly looses all his family to yellow fever, Cable is able to get an outside perspective on the insular creole world of New Orleans and the gothic fall of the house of Grandissime. Aspects of the story I found particularly intriguing included the mixture of languages used both in the text and in the story, the story of Bras Coupé, the awareness of Saint Dominique and the Haitian Revolution, and the doubling, between Aurore and Clotilde Nancanou, and Honoré Grandissime and Honoré Grandissime, f.m.c.. Overall very good.