Louis Edwards Selected Works

N opens with a bang, literally, as Aimee DuBois is awakened at three a.m. by the ringing of her phone. She lifts the receiver to her ear only to hear two loud gunshots. Somewhere in the humid New Orleans night, the handset of a pay phone dangles by its cord, picking up only the sound of footsteps running away in the dark. How did Aimee, a well-educated and independent journalist who runs an alternative newspaper, end up on the end of such a call? It begins with the shooting of an eighteen-year-old boy on the steps of his high school. The only real clue is a locket bearing the letter "N". As she investigates, Aimee befriends a drug dealer named Strip, who is as sweet and sexy as he is dangerous. With Strip as her guide, Aimee plunges into a side of New Orleans that takes her by surprise. As her investigation deepens, Aimee questions her ideas about herself, men, and her community. "N" becomes more than just a clue to a killer—it becomes a clue to her own sense of self.

In January 1882, Oscar Wilde arrived in New York to begin a nationwide publicity tour. Mentioned in a few newspaper articles—but barely a footnote in the history books—was the black valet who accompanied him. In a daring and richly imaginative work, Louis Edwards rescues this figure from obscurity, blurring the line between fact and fiction as he follows Wilde and his gifted confidant, Traquair, on a whirlwind tour across the country, from high-society Newport to art-conscious San Francisco to the Deep South. Edwards's brilliantly conjured Wilde astounds the New World with his eloquent lectures and larger-than-life presence, while Traquair delights in the greatest year of his youth: losing his virginity in a Washington, D. C, brothel; meeting Jefferson Davis in Mississippi; falling hopelessly in love in St. Louis; and learning about his own family's secret history. Juxtaposed with Traquair's experiences are those of his Caucasian best friend, Baxter, who travels to England and becomes enmeshed in a circle of luminaries including Lady Wilde, James Whistler, Lillie Langtry, and Wilde's future wife, Constance Lloyd.

Combining seductive, epigrammatic language and a unique perspective on class and race in late-nineteenth-century America, Oscar Wilde Discovers America builds to a surprising climax that offers a chilling forecast of the tragic destiny of Wilde and a stunning redefinition of the American spirit.

The narrator, a Black oil refinery worker in Louisiana, looks back on his life and the people and events that have shaped it.