Gumbeaux

Nearly driven to homicide by an alcoholic caretaker, a sheltered, rebellious young heiress disappears into New Orleans to heal in peace from the death of her parents. In moving from Washington, D.C. to Louisiana, she experiences culture shock and freedom for the first time.

The title refers to a Cajun restaurant where she takes a job as a waitress. There, she engages in many misadventures with often hilarious results. Years later, she is haunted by the conviction that she may have left part of her soul behind in the deep south, and must face her dark, reckless past in order to win it back.

©2013 Kimberly Vargas (P)2013 Kimberly Vargas

Fun, active young woman's coming of age

To escape domineering uncle guardian, Ms. Feit escapes from her inherited Art Museum in Washington, DC to Bayou Bend, Louisiana to study Art and find herself. Her relationships with friends, co-workers at the Gumbeaux restaurant and with her professor keep the reader intrigued. Her flighty relationship with the "star" ends too abruptly when he moves to California to become a star there. His return later is plausible but their re-connection seems like too much of a leap for this reader. Feit's characterization when she tries to convince the professor to stay with her was also not believable for this reader - seemed out of character for most of what she had done in human connections throughout the book.
Narrator Appelusa McGlynn does well with subtle voice changes for characters. Sometimes an accent gradually appears; occasionally I struggled to determine who was speaking. I noticed several mispronunciations.