THE CASE OF THE ANNIVERSARY LIBATION is a murder mystery with its “detective” being the “clever Hebrew” Judah P. Benjamin of Louisiana. His amanuensis, Horatio T. Burdette, tells of a Huck Finn odyssey from boyhood, to student, to early fatherhood, all while he is a slave. The 88,500-word novel traces Horatio’s boyhood at the Burdette plantations near the Gulf of Mexico. A drunken Rainey Burdette has already caused the death of a horse in an accident that broke the collarbone of the twelve-year-old Horatio. Days later, Rainey is drunk at Miss Ginny’s Emporium when he uses Horatio as collateral during a poker game. Horatio ends up being the “property” of Captain Eagleton, an anti-slavery gambler who had served in the war with Mexico.
At Omega plantation owned by the Osgoods, the Captain plays cards with the plantation owner and his guest, Senator Benjamin. As the Captain realizes he is dying from being poisoned, he deliberately loses Horatio to the Senator in a game of blackjack. He gets Benjamin to be his executor and writes a quick will in which he gives most of his money to his little boy in Charleston but sets aside enough for Horatio to be sent north for an education.
After the Captain’s death, three others die on the plantation. Benjamin continues his trip to Washington City, but leaves Horatio in the hands of people he can trust. Later, at Benjamin’s plantation, he meets an old slave with a rhetorical gift and a girl named Sophie, who is a little older than he is.
When in New Orleans and later in Chicago and Philadelphia, the Senator and Horatio pick up enough clues to solve the mystery of the poisonings at Omega Plantation.
Genre: FICTION / Mystery & Detective / HistoricalThe book is relatively new, and I haven't been promoting it since I have other manuscripts to publish. Potential buyers, however, would include Civil War buffs (Benjamin was very important in the CSA cabinet); African Americans and others interested in the darker aspects of slavery; those interested in stories about Jews in the U.S. in the 19th Century.
RECOLLECTIONS FROM CHARTRES
When I sip a glass of wine at this tavern here in Chartres, you can see that I stand out. Notice that the locals hunch over the tables in their caps and coats of dark blues or blacks. Yet here I wear the out-of-fashion tweedy attire of an English squire (cut down, of course, to fit my skinny frame). Then, with shock, a visitor may notice my black hands, and face, and neck, and, as you can see, I stand out as the only black man in the town.
The eternally inquisitive French will sip their drinks discreetly, but I know that curiosity will compel each one to ask me how I got here. They grin to hear the Creole French that I absorbed in New Orleans, and I don’t mind it when they ask me to repeat pronunciations that amuse them. They want to know what it was like to be a slave and what it was like to be the servant of a Confederate cabinet member. They ask again what his name was. I tell them Mr. Judah P. Benjamin.
They toast liberty, fraternity, and equality, and—to be honest—I admit they have been better neighbors to me than any others in the Americas or the British Isles.
Still, there is something appealing about a lost cause, even one that should have perished. Yet, I know that, if they had been alive during their Revolution, these sons and daughters of peasants would have insisted on guillotining King Louis and his queen. Still, a part of them would mourn the ancien régime, as they imagined themselves going to meet the Iron Maiden.
So, despite their ideals, they beg me to tell stories about life in the slave states and in the Confederate States of America.
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Spanish
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Already translated.
Translated by Bernarda Rojas Valenzuela
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