Another Kind of Eden

by James Lee Burke

$28.00 (autographed 1st edition hardcover available)

The American West in the early 1960s appears to be a pastoral paradise: golden wheat fields, mist-filled canyons, frolicking animals. Aspiring novelist Aaron Holland Broussard has observed it from the open door of a boxcar, riding the rails for both inspiration and odd jobs.

The latest installment in James Lee Burke’s masterful Holland family saga “Another Kind of Eden” is both riveting and one of Burke’s most ambitious works to date. It dismantles the myths of both the twentieth-century American West and the peace-and-love decade, excavating the beauty and idealism of the era to show the menace and chaos that lay simmering just beneath the surface.

Review presented by Books Along the Teche

337-367-7621 | 106 E. Main Street, New Iberia

MARY MORVANT

Medium: Oil on canvas

Work: The Bridge that Paw Paw Built

Available at: The Studio Gallery & Coffee Bar, St. Martinville

Price: $400

Mary Morvant may be widely known for her remarkable portraiture (she currently has commissions scheduled two years out), but she confesses that her other work is particularly gratifying. “The Bridge that Paw Paw Built,” a small plein air painting, conveys the dilapidation of a wooden bridge on her family’s property. The structure, instead of collapsing, tipped over, and Morvant captured it with the energy and passion typical of her work. View her gallery of work at marymorvant.com; for a first-hand look, visit The Studio Gallery & Coffee Bar in St. Martinville.

ROBIN HEBERT-GUIDRY

Medium: Metal/Stone

Available at: Pink Alligator Gallery, Breaux Bridge

Price: $25 and $85

Working from her studio at Pink Alligator Gallery in downtown Breaux Bridge, owner Robin Hebert- Guidry has fine-tuned her line of handcrafted jewelry into a collection of elegant, must-have statement pieces. Showing prominently in her gallery are a pair of antique brass and African turquoise earrings complementing a stunning necklace she made using the same antique brass, but with chrysocolla stone – a blue-green type of hydrated copper. As seen in most of her work, Hebert-Guidry skillfully mixes metals, as well as aesthetics and eras.

JANELLE HEBERT

Medium: Textile/Painting

Available at: NuNu Collective, Arnaudville

Price: $175

While Janelle Hebert has always been an artist, it wasn’t until she settled in Arnaudville (after hitching a ride there as a Hurricane Katrina refugee) that she began to expand her collection to include textiles. For the past two years, she’s been turning donated clothing items found at St. Therese Thrift Shop into works of art. This colorful moth, hand painted directly onto a ladies jacket, is just one of dozens of items in her impressive line, which also includes hand painted landscapes, organic abstracts and aboriginal designs.