New Orleans' Literary Scene

Recently my husband and I celebrated our anniversary with a long weekend in New Orleans, and I'm not sure whether I was more excited about the food I was planning to eat or seeing the city where many great writers have penned their famous works. We spent three and a half days mostly in the French Quarter and I tracked down all the places I could find with literary significance. Here they are:

Hotel Monteleone has been visited by many important writers (see photo above for list). It's a beautiful hotel, and if you sit in the Carousel Bar near the window overlooking Royal Street, the people watching is top-notch.

Here I am on the St. Charles Avenue Streetcar. I was so excited thinking about Tennessee Williams' A Streetcar Named Desire that I could barely contain myself.

William Faulkner lived in this townhouse just off Jackson Square in his early years as a writer. He wrote Mosquitoes and Soldier's Pay while he stayed here. As bookstores go, this one is pretty small, but so filled with great stuff you hardly even notice. I bought three books here that I'll likely be writing about after I've read them later.

This home on Bourbon Street was occupied at different times by both Truman Capote and Tennessee Williams. Now it's owned by Cokie Roberts' mother, Lindy Boggs, a politician and activist.

This home on St. Peter Street is where Williams wrote A Streetcar Named Desire.

And finally, this is Galatoire's, a French restaurant on Bourbon Street frequented by Tennessee Williams. Also, Stella took Blanche here in A Streetcar Named Desire. We ate here and the food was good, but many of the places we ate were much better than good.

My self-guided tour of New Orleans was satisfactory, but it was merely a substitute for a real one I'd tried to line up. There is just one literary tour in town and though the woman who gives them is supposed to be fantastic, she doesn't return phone calls and even hangs up on people calling at an inconvenient time for her (she has, apparently, never heard of voicemail). My suggestion to New Orleans is that someone else needs to give her some competition. New Orleans is far too important to American literature to only have one person telling all the good stuff. OK, the gripe session is over now.

Monroeville: Literary Capital of Alabama and Home of To Kill a Mockingbird

It feels like I have been waiting forever to get the chance to visit Monroeville, Alabama, while the annual production of To Kill a Mockingbird is going on. Finally, finally I got my chance. Monroeville was our next stop after Columbus, Georgia, last week on the literary road trip. Monroeville has a population of about 6800 people, and it was declared in 1997 "The Literary Capital of Alabama." This was a good year for me to visit, as we arrived in town the day after author Harper Lee's 84th birthday, it was the 50th anniversary of the novel's publication, and the 20th anniversary of the play production. The town had rolled out the red carpet, so to speak, in celebration in and around the courthouse in the center of town.

Monument for Atticus Finch, "Lawyer, Hero" given by the Alabama State Bar Association.

Birdhouses in honor of the book's 50th year.

The set for the first act of the play on the lawn of the courthouse. The second act was inside the historic courtroom.

A mural of Scout, Jem and Dill and the tree in front of the Radley home. This is painted on the side of the jewelry store on the square across the street from the courthouse.

On our way back to the hotel, we passed the cite where Harper Lee's childhood home once stood, and it is now Mel's Dairy Dream.

Next door is the cite where the Faulk home stood. Truman Capote visited his relatives here many times as a child, and throughout his adult life. The house burned years ago, but some of the foundation remains, and a marker has been placed there to mark the spot. I wonder why there's no marker for Harper Lee at Mel's?

Here's where we ate dinner on the way to the play, Radley's Fountain Grille.

When the evening came, we attended the anniversary production of To Kill a Mockingbird, performed by actors who were local volunteers. You'd never know it though. They were fine actors, and made the book absolutely come to life in a magical way. Bob Ewell, the most despicable character in the novel was spot-on by a man who, for his day job, is a district attorney! All the other actors had a variety of other professions and lives outside the three weeks the perform To Kill a Mockingbird 20 times. Some of the cast members are in the two photos below.

The three children are standing together here.

And, Atticus Finch (in the cardigan) and Heck Tate (in the vest and hat).

House Museum: Carson McCullers

This week, my mom and I traveled to Columbus, Georgia, and Monroeville and Montgomery, Alabama, to see three Southern Literary Trail sites. I mentioned here recently that I read Carson McCullers' The Heart is a Lonely Hunter, and her childhood home in Columbus was our first stop.

We had arranged for a tour ahead of time, and we were met at on the front porch by the director of The Carson McCullers Center for Writers and Musicians, Cathy Fussell. The home is a beautiful example of a Craftsman-style house, and was occupied by McCullers' family, the Smiths, from 1925 until 1944. Today the home is owned and managed by Columbus State University, but remains accessible to the community as events, readings, meetings, and other gatherings are regularly held here. The University has an active creative writing program, and its students have the benefit of having The Carson McCullers Center available to them.

McCullers described this home and her hometown in numerous places in her stories, and according to Fussell, McCullers felt crowded in Columbus, but comfortable in her family's home. McCullers' bedroom was on the front of the house and in it she wrote The Member of the Wedding sitting at a desk next to this dresser.

Fussell told us an interesting tidbit that tied in well with the rest of our trip. McCuller's sister, Rita Smith, was an editor in New York and the first person to publish Truman Capote.

McCullers wrote The Heart is a Lonely Hunter in Fayetteville, NC, while she lived there with her Army husband. Currently, Fayetteville's The Museum of the Cape Fear has a McCullers exhibit on display through May 30. So, for those of you reading from North Carolina, be sure to check this out sometime this month. I, myself, am going to see if I can swing a visit.

Fussell was a wonderful, knowledgeable tour guide. You can read more about The Carson McCullers Center on her blog.

After we left the McCullers home, we headed for downtown Columbus to get lunch and see Broadway, the main drag that McCullers described in her work.

We realized on the way that Columbus should get an award for repurposing old buildings. This house is now a Burger King (note the playground to the left), and this barbeque restaurant where we ate lunch was once a bus station.