The Feast of All Saints
4.2
54
5
1
Product Details
| ISBN-13: | 9780345334534 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | Random House Publishing Group |
| Publication date: | 09/28/1986 |
| Edition description: | Reissue |
| Pages: | 640 |
| Sales rank: | 184,370 |
| Product dimensions: | 6.84(w) x 10.92(h) x 0.99(d) |
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Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
The Feast of All Saints
4.2 out of 5
based on
0 ratings.
54 reviews.
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A fascinating look at the hidden society of mixed-race people in ore-Civil War New Orleans.
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While rummaging around in one of the many flea markets I frequent this novel stood out among several hundred romance novels. I initially pushed the book to the side thinking it was just another Anne Rice vampire novel. For some reason I was drawn back to it. I picked it up, read the summary, and decided to give the cashier the dollar it cost. I am glad I gave this book a second look because it was one of those very rare, beautiful, and stunning novels.This is a novel about the somewhat mysterious ¿gens de couleur libre¿ -the Free People of Color-set in New Orleans around the 1840s. The ¿gens de couleur¿ are the descendants of the African and the French but they embrace the latter. These are privileged families whose primary language is French and most speak very little English. The women possess a certain class and grace that cannot be taught it is simply bred into the very fabric of their being. The men are true gentleman who are determined to preserve their community and way of life. These are beautiful people. Their stories are very complicated and tragic. Their world is one made of glass that is eventually shattered.The novel is focused on the Ste. Marie family. This family consists of the mother Cecile, a patriarch Phillippe Ferronaire, and their children Marcel and Marie. Phillippe Ferronaire is white and married with a family that lives on his plantation, Bontemps. Marcel has his father¿s blue eyes and blonde hair but coarseness of that blonde hair keeps him from ¿passing¿. Marie is the stunning beauty whose white skin betrays most. Marcel is our lovely protagonist whose life revolves around traveling to Paris when he turns eighteen and the arrival of a new teacher, Christophe. Christophe left the close knit ¿gens de couleur¿ community and traveled to Paris and made a name for himself as a writer. Christophe and Marcel start a unique instant friendship that transcended teacher and pupil. This friendship proves to be an anchor to them both in the perilous times that arise quite quickly.As we read it seems as if Marcel¿s life of privilege dealt him a short hand in preparing him to be a man. He is prepared to be a gentleman but not a man. With a father that is mostly absent, Marcel is left to his own random ideas of how his life should be. Marcel is faced with some hard decisions when his father¿s constant supply of money is stopped abruptly and his dreams to go to Paris are lost forever. While everyone is consumed with Marcel, Marie goes unnoticed especially by Cecile. Even though Marie is a head turning beauty she has a wounded soul. She is torn between pleasing her ever persistent aunts by attending the quadroon balls to attract a rich white suitor, as her mother did, or marry the black man she loves, Richard Lermontant who happens to be Marcel¿s best friend.The lives of the characters of this novel are intertwined very intricately. I just want to describe a few. There was Dolly Rose, the beautiful yet self destructive quadroon beauty who had to bury her only child at such a young age and later establishes a brothel. The Lermontant¿s are the wealthy free black family who bury the dead white and black. Juliet, Christopher¿s mother, who was both eccentric and illiterate, took the teenage Marcel as a lover. Lisette, the mulatto house slave of the Ste. Marie¿s, who allowed the broken promises of freedom and jealousy lead her to a tragic end. Then there was also the precious, Anna Bella, Marcel¿s closest friend whose unconditional love for him proved to be her main obstacle. The main contributors to this way of life and bloodline were the white men that maintained separate black families for their own selfish benefit but never paid much attention to the long term effects of such selfishness. The lifestyle of the ¿gens de couleur¿ was a character as well as the city of New Orleans. I can¿t say enough about how captivatingly beautiful this story was even with all the flawed yet beautiful people that brought it to life.
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I liked this book. I automatically thought that it would be more of a horror book, but it wasn't it was a good story of where the half white, half black society stood, how they lived and how they felt about the world around them.
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I read this book when it first came out when I was 16 & loved it. I've re-read it periodically & still love it (I think this makes my fourth read). The good thing about re-reading books is all the different perspectives you bring & the new things you notice because you've grown & changed.When I was 16 I was taken with the romanticism of the book - the free people of color, the world of Antebellum New Orleans, the various love stories - what teenager wouldn't swoon? At this point I still enjoy the romanticism, but the history means even more &, most of all, I love the search for identity & the love of books & learning that is evident throughout this story.This is not Anne Rice writing poorly (or otherwise) about paranormal things. This is Anne Rice writing well about history. I've always thought she wrote 4 really good books: this one, plus Interview With the Vampire, The Vampire Lestat, & Cry to Heaven. At some point she just started turning out page after page of garbage & I gave up on her. I return to this book often, though. Its characters & its sense of place & time draw me into its world & make me reluctant to leave. This is a good book.
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One of Rice's best works.
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This and cry to heaven are not horror by far, I only tag them thus to keep them together with her other work. This is the best book of hers, in my opinion. Even the movie was pretty good.
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I couldn't get through this - and that rarely happens. I guess I expected something akin to her vampire series. The story of the "Free People of Color" was interesting in itself, but her pages number too many for the content conveyed. Ultimately, at p. 296 of 640, I realized this was either third-rate historical fiction or a second-rate romance novel. For me, it was the end.
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This is one of Anne Rice's books that is not overtly connected with vampires, witches or mummies. Here Rice explores the world of the free blacks, and mulattos in New Orleans. Undervalued, as this may be one of her finer works.
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All these reviews are for Anne Rice's book and not for this author.Whats up with that?
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very good book i love ann rice i read every book she has written this is one of the best after the vampire series
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