The God of Nightmares

Hooray for Paula! Once again her words leave me feeling light and happy.

Shortly after news of her father's death, Helen escapes the confines of her early life. She leaves her mother and upstate NY and travels to New Orelans to bring her aunt Lulu back to NY to help her mother run the cabin business. In New Orleans, Helen falls into a trance of soft humid Southerness, where she meets her future husband Len, and her close friend Nina. Also Claude, the gentleman who prefered boys, who ends up dead beneath the Dueling Oaks. And Gerald and Catherine, the couple with whom Helen boards. Gerald a poet who was beaten by his Cajun neighbors for exposing their way of life to the world. Lulu's drunkenness and divorce from Sam Bridges, with whom Nina has an affair. Nina describing her life as 'floating by', and drinking from the "Colored" fountain out of mild defiance. Part 1 is full of violence and chaos, yet leaves no blood on your mind.

Part 2 fast-forwards 20+ years to the 1960s when Helen and Len are living in NYC and renovating her mother's old house after her death. Helen runs into Nina in the city, then mentions it later to Len, who acts strangely and admits to having been involved with Nina back in the day. Ends very sweetly with Helen waiting for Len to wake up from a long sleep.