Product Description

It's the mid-1950s and the Petitjeans and the Bruneaus have farmed oysters in Louisiana for hundreds of years. Bitter rivals, the two families struggle to survive, their boats mortgaged to the next harvest, their emotions soured by the grievances they pass down to their children. Now the oyster beds are threatened - and with them both families' livelihoods. The solution is a marriage between the headstrong young Therese Petitjean and Horse, the brutal patriarch of the Bruneau clan. But then a body is trawled in with the shrimp, and so begins a cycle of revenge that can only end one way . . . OYSTER is a story of greed, passion and fierce rivalry. This is an environment in which people save themselves if they are to be saved at all. 'Biguenet uses a prose style redolent with the sense of mystery emanating from the land and from the murky bayous that litter it. The sense of place is remarkable in this outstanding first novel, and the people who inhabit it are evoked in all their primitive splendour. Recommended' IRISH TIMES

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #1234313 in Books
• Published on: 2003-08-07
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 288 pages

Review
'In places, Oyster reads like Romeo and Juliet crossed with Deliverance, but Biguenet manages to make you care about his cast of redneck killers, and the clever plotting keeps your attention...Oyster glowers with the steamy menace of the swamps' (DAILY TELEGRAPH )

About the Author
John Biguenet is the author of a novel, Oyster, and a story collection, The Torturer's Apprentice. The winner of an O. Henry Award, he has published fiction, poetry, and nonfiction in such journals as Granta, Esquire, Playboy, Story, Zoetrope, and DoubleTake as well as in various anthologies. He is currently the Robert Hunter Distinguished Professor at Loyola University in New Orleans.

Customer Reviews

Sultry, intensely atmospheric novel
"Oyster", a sultry, spicy, ancient Greek-style drama set in the bayous of Louisiana, gives more proof that most of the best new English-language novelists are in the US these days. John Biguenet wastes not one word in either descriptive writing or dialogue as he builds up his intensely atmospheric account of a feud sowing tragedy between two neighbouring families in the declining oyster business. The plot is simple but effective, the author's ear for the humour and menace of Louisiana language is spot on. Don't miss the mouth-watering recipe for jambalaya slipped cleverly into one scene.