Used Book – A Big Step Towards the Good Lord, Jean Vautrin

Whoever opens this great novel will travel to Louisiana, visit the Cajuns, and share the destiny of three generations. The action begins in 1893 and ends in 1920. We will thus see Edius Raquin, the father, cunning, stubborn, the very example of these pioneering coureurs de bois who, in those times, did not hesitate to trust nature and the Good Lord. Then will appear Edius's future son-in-law, the famous Farouche Ferraille Crowley, the man with slate eyes, the outlaw who draws quickly. Is that all? No, because Palestine Northwood, the sailor from Nantucket, a former harpooner, is also part of the celebration and the drama. To what extent? And why? That is the secret of this book where everyone, from Poitou, from Ireland, from Germany or Acadia, Creole Indian or Yankee, often a black cousin of slaves, speaks French to carve their way in the world. It should also be known that we will meet Jim, Edius Raquin's grandson, and that the child discovered at the bottom of a New Orleans trash can will lead us, enchantingly, to the birth of ragtime and blues, of which he will become a symbol under the name of Jimmy Trompette.