Glass House: A Novel

by Christine Wiltz

Overview

When Thea Tamborella returns to New Orleans after a ten-year absence, she finds a city gripped by fear. The privileged white socialites of her private-school days pack guns to fancy dinner parties and spend their free time in paramilitary patrols. The black gardeners, maids, and cooks who work days in the mansions of the elite Garden District return each evening to housing projects wracked by poverty, drugs, and gang violence. The city's haves and have-nots glare at each other across a yawning racial divide as fear turns to hate and an us-against-them mentality.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780807126837
Publisher:	Louisiana State University Press
Publication date:	03/01/2001
Series:	Voices of the South
Edition description:	Reprint
Pages:	189
Product dimensions:	5.50(w) x 8.50(h) x 0.40(d)

About the Author

Christine Wiltz, a native resident of New Orleans, is also the author of The Last Madam: A Life in the New Orleans Underworld and three mystery novels featuring Irish Channel detective Neal Rafferty. She coauthored a television documentary about David Duke, Backlash: Race and the American Dream, which aired on PBS in 1992.

Editorial Reviews

Set in contemporary New Orleans, this is a compelling story about a young woman whose return to her hometown is undermined by old fears and new hatreds. Recovering from a failed marriage and haunted by the murder of her parents by two black men, Thea Tamborella moves back from New England into a mansion in the Garden District bequeathed to her by her aunt. Still at the mansion is Delzora Monroe, her aunt's housekeeper, whose son Burgess was Thea's childhood playmate until he was banished from the house. Now a rich and powerful drug dealer, Burgess is determined to rebuild the Convent Street Housing Project. Drawn to Burgess, Thea begins to understand the fear and distrust blacks feel in reaction to the white community's suspicion and prejudice. Racism lurks beneath the well-bred facades of Thea's old friends, her high school boyfriend Bobby Buchanan and well-to-do Sandy and Lyle Hindermann. Lyle has become a white supremacist fanatic and--when a white police officer is killed--a vigilante. The tensions between the two communities escalate beyond control until another fatality occurs. Shattered by the crossfire of raging hatred, Thea must come to terms with her parents' deaths, her conflicted feelings toward Burgess and her gradual recognition of the real enemy. This cautionary tale (which was inspired by real events) is a powerful, heartbreaking evocation of an American tragedy. Wiltz wrote The Killing Circle and other mysteries and was coauthor of Backlash: Race and the American Dream. (Jan.)

Publishers Weekly - Publisher's Weekly

When Aunt Althea dies and leaves niece Thea Tamborella a mansion in the Garden District, Thea returns to New Orleans to settle the estate. Having lived in exile for ten years, she finds herself inexplicably drawn back to the city where life has become dangerous. Citizens are pitted against each other: black against white, rich against poor. Fear is pervasive. Despite the murder of her parents in her youth and the paranoia of some of her old friends, Thea remains open-minded. She hires Burgess Monroe, the son of her aunt's housekeeper, to remodel her house. A childhood acquaintance, Burgess has become a local drug kingpin and the Bishop of Convent Street. As the story unfolds, Thea finds herself physically drawn to Burgess. Wiltz writes beautifully and compellingly, creating the unique aura of New Orleans and a phalanx of well-developed characters. There is a sustained and effective atmosphere of racial tension throughout. Recommended.-- Kimberly G. Allen, MCI Corporate Info. Resources Ctr., Washington, D.C.

Library Journal

Wiltz's careers as mystery writer and TV documentarian influence this sociology-heavy novel, first published in 1994, which was inspired by the shooting of a New Orleans policeman in 1980, and its racially charged aftermath. A reluctant southerner, Wiltz's female protagonist returns to her native New Orleans when she inherits a family home. But the uneasily integrated city disturbs her greatly, and the liberal-minded woman finds herself mired in fear and tension. Kirkus found the plot-driven narrative "gripping" and "thought-provoking," without being "pedantic." A message-novel of sorts, we thought its delivery was "fair," and that Wiltz was "a calm, quiet voice that deserves to be heard." No doubt, it still does.

Kirkus Reviews