by Louis Maestros
“One has to write with considerable authenticity to pull off a story steeped in magic and swamp water that examines race and class, death and rebirth, Haitian voodoo, and the beginnings of jazz in 1891 New Orleans. Maistros’s gritty debut novel follows the interconnected lives of the Morningstar siblings–all lovingly named by their father after disease– as they wrestle with a powerful demon, con outsiders, kill and die, die and are reborn. The plot is complex and magical, grounded in the history of the city, without being overly sentimental. There is a comfort with death as a part of life in this work that reveals deep feeling for the city and its past. Of course, every novel about New Orleans must have a good hurricane. Like the one in Zora Neale Hurston’s classic Their Eyes Were Watching God, this hurricane destroys the city while making hope possible. Highly recommended for all fiction collections, especially where there is an interest in jazz.” –Library Journal
“This book sings out in true jazz fashion — wildly inventive, oddly formed yet perfectly made, and never a sour note.”
— The Anniston Star
“Louis Maistros has written a lyrical, complex, and brave novel that takes enormous risks and pulls them all off. He is a writer to watch and keep reading, a writer to cherish.” — Peter Straub
Maistros creates a city that is part dream, part hallucination. His New Orleans embodies both the grim reality of a particular time and the city’s eternal, shimmering beauty. And, with the book’s title, he provides us with a new and unforgettable metaphor for the sound of hammers at work, whether boarding up for a storm or rebuilding after one.” — Susan Larson, New Orleans Times-Picayune & USA Today
“The Sound of Building Coffins is a macabre and utterly hypnotic feat of literary imagination, an extended tale of voodoo and jazz in the Crescent City, circa the turn of the 20th century. The novel is so fluently delivered that it sometimes feels as if it were being channeled via the same spirits – evil and good – that inhabit these richly drawn characters. Maistros, a New Orleans record-store owner and former forklift operator with no formal training as a writer, has crafted a work spiked with historical characters and events, so striking and original that it probably deserves a place on the shelf of great fiction from his adopted hometown.” — Phillip Booth, St. Petersburg Times
“The Society of North American Magic Realists welcomes its newest, most dazzling member, Louis Maistros. His debut novel is a thing of wonder, unlike anything in our literature. It startles. It stuns. It stupefies. No novel since A Confederacy of Dunces has done such justice to New Orleans.” — Donald Harington, winner of the Robert Penn Warren Award
“A writer of lesser ability would have been swallowed up in the swirling complexity of such a plot, plunging it to the level of a silly period piece regional novel. However, The Sound of Building Coffins is different. Maistros keeps his head above water and pulls off an admirable story because of his keen research into the history of New Orleans and his compelling style that is fired by his use of foreboding imagery. The Sound of Building Coffins is riveting. It is a good read and a remarkable first novel.” — Endtype: A Canadian Literary Magazine
Janet Dore –
“Starting over is a funny thing. You only get one true start, on the day you are born. But as we get older and know better about the lives we’ve lived, every once in awhile we try to make ourselves a new beginning. Problem is that you can’t erase where you come from, the accumulation of your experience being undeniably who you are. Ain’t no one can be rebirthed out of a past that has come to define them, no matter if these things come by chance or design. You can only pretend to start again; never to forget, try as you might.”
This book will take you on a captivating journey through the simultaneously colorful and dark streets of New Orleans in the early 1900s. Maistros perfectly captures the city’s unique spirit and mysterious culture.
It’s definitely a dark and tragic tale filled with abortion, prostitution, demonic possession, devastating floods, and murder, yet somehow Maistros is able to convey a very subtle sense of hope….more for the city than for the individuals living in it.
While the character development is strong, I did find myself struggling to emotionally connect with the characters. Something caused me to remain detached from them, but not so much that I lost interest.
What sets “The Sound of Building Coffins” apart is its masterful storytelling, voodoo vibe, and little unexpected twists that keep you literally and figuratively in a dark place until the very end. There’s no doubt the man deeply knows and loves New Orleans.