On Human Frailty and Corruption

“There is a lot of human frailty floating around,” observes Nancy Lemann in The Ritz of the Bayou, her account of the 1985 racketeering trial of Edwin Edwards, Louisiana’s colorful, crooked governor, then in his third term. Lemann’s sharp eye for the human frailty at work within a veritable circus of corruption earned the book admiration from her fans, but it got little attention otherwise. Hub City Press is remedying that neglect with a 40th anniversary edition featuring an introduction by critic James Wolcott and a new afterword by the author.

Lemann had received acclaim for her debut novel, Lives of the Saints, and was, as she puts it, “a kid on a magic carpet ride of commercial success” when she traveled from New York to her hometown of New Orleans to cover the Edwards trial for Vanity Fair. She found the assignment “irresistible” and stuck with it for months, through a mistrial and a second round that ended in acquittal. VF’s Tina Brown, however, was dismayed by Lemann’s idiosyncratic attempt at journalism and killed the piece. Knopf editor Gordon Lish, in what Wolcott calls “a beau geste,” gave it a second life.

Readers who expect a straightforward account of events might sympathize with Brown. Lemann is not big on context or explication. Her approach, she says in the afterword, was to “chronicle the vibe,” and she does just that, beginning with the “feverish, alcoholic atmosphere” of the initial train ride south to New Orleans, which “later developed into a sort of riot. … I would describe the atmosphere as smoldering.” The repetition of “atmosphere” is deliberate, a device she uses throughout the book of repeating words and circling back to certain moments, giving her narration a subtle incantatory quality.

The book progresses through a series of vignettes describing impressions and encounters that are sometimes directly related to the trial, sometimes not. Lemann is a keen observer of setting and character, but there is no pretense of journalistic objectivity here. She is part of the vibe she’s chronicling: “My heart was back in business when I saw all that human frailty.”

At the core of the book is Lemann’s passionate, funny, unsettling description of what it feels like to be back home, and she comments often on the rich, troubled character of New Orleans and the South generally:

A flawed thing may be more full of life than a perfect thing. You can only state the condition of the thing you love, despite its flaws. You may be filled with longing and unease, but one thing you know—when you are there, your ticker’s back in business.

This emphasis on the personal doesn’t prevent Lemann from delivering the critical facts of the trial. She efficiently outlines the $10 million racketeering scheme and sketches the whole cast of characters, including her fellow reporters, the judge, the prosecutors, and Edwards’ co-defendants. She takes particular interest in the numerous defense attorneys, described as “a collection of the most picturesque, shrewd, histrionic, fake-countrified white-haired gents you could think of.”

One of Edwards’ lawyers is prominent Nashvillian Jim Neal, who seems to irk Lemann far more than anyone else on the scene. “There was always a sort of backslapping drawling joviality about him,” she says, and it’s clear that this is not a compliment. Every time Neal appears, with his Tennessee accent, twinkling eyes, and constant jokes, he rubs her the wrong way. Edwards’ other attorney, Camille Gravel, a Louisiana insider unafflicted by excess joviality, earns her respect.

Her impression of Edwards himself — who was famously charming and, in Lemann’s words, “what you would call a card” — is more complicated. When she finds herself alone with him in a courthouse elevator, she acknowledges that “he Worked His Magic on me. He did have an air of humanity and was unpretentious and direct.” She also sees Edwards as one in a long line of reckless Southern politicians, “the breed of humanity to which we are accustomed.” (His recklessness would catch up with him in 2000, when he was convicted and ultimately sentenced to prison for a different corruption scandal.)

The Ritz of the Bayou is full of quotable lines and passages, but small samples don’t convey the effect of Lemann’s unique style, with its tics and repetitions and occasional archness. Wolcott aptly calls the book a “fugue performance,” and it has a hypnotic quality that seems at odds with the sleazy drama at its center. Yet it all works, bringing to life a bit of political history as well as Lemann’s own younger self.

The reprise of The Ritz of the Bayou is accompanied this spring by a reissue of Lemann’s Lives of the Saints and a new novel, The Oyster Diaries, both from New York Review Books, creating the perfect opportunity for a fresh audience to encounter her unforgettable literary voice.