The Prophets of Gentilly Terrace
A New Orleans Novel
Political scheming reveals the complicated historical webs that plague diverse contemporary New Orleans in the thrilling novel The Prophets of Gentilly Terrace.
An extortion-related political conspiracy unravels against New Orleans’s complex historical backdrop of race, colonialism, and class in Gordon Peter Wilson’s novel The Prophets of Gentilly Terrace.
Hounded by money troubles, Jerry, a tax assessor, teams up with his corrupt political mentor, Burton, and Burton’s partner, Glenn, to squeeze money out of a Vietnamese grocery store in Gentilly Terrace that he suspects of illegally operating a lottery. Pulled into these underhanded maneuvers is an FBI agent, Margot, who is assigned to investigate this same grocery store in her childhood neighborhood. Margot also navigates a burgeoning romance in her personal life. Elsewhere, Lecky, a closeted gay man, tries to assert independence from his tyrannical, old-money wife as their daughter fights her drug addiction.
The novel addresses the complex racial and colonial history of New Orleans head on, and from its opening pages, with the introductory first-person account of one of Jerry’s ancestors, Idalise. Idalise was a wealthy mixed-race woman who established herself as part of the pre–Civil War New Orleans elite. She also owned slaves herself, and her white father owned a plantation in Haiti. These complicated historical tensions continue to surface through repeated reminders throughout the novel that modern New Orleans still contends with forces of racism, gentrification, and colonialism.
Elsewhere, Jerry displays a callous ability to leverage the progressive hope placed in him, a mixed-race politician, for avaricious, underhanded means. It seems that this is made possible because of historical, systematic racial abuses. The city’s vast, underserved Black communities are also highlighted. And at Jerry’s opposite is Margot, who draws investigative strength from her ancestors: they sought refuge from the Vietnam War in the US, establishing a thriving livelihood in Gentilly Terrace through means both legitimate and not. Herein, colonial displacement is an ever-present reality.
Still, the cast is most often off-putting, and their development is too uniform. Indeed, most characters are prone to hypocrisy, as with those who only show off their supposed progressive ideals in order to line their own pockets and cement their own elite statuses. In the world of Gentilly Terrace, nearly everyone belonging to the moneyed upper classes is despicable and two-faced, regardless of their public political stances. Many are driven by mercenary motives. Stereotypical depictions of gay men and Black women undermine the characterizations further.
In addition, the book’s extensive, learned details about factors such as tax assessing procedures, historical events, and the New Orleans locale lead to a novel that is too heavy with exposition. And lengthy descriptions of people’s backgrounds and motives are frequent, slowing the book’s pace and impeding interest. The final follow-through of Jerry’s complex money-making conspiracy is unsatisfying as a result, and the book’s resolution is rushed through. This conclusion also exists in uneven juxtaposition to the extensive setup of the political corruption that comes in the book’s first half.
A scathing political satire, The Prophets of Gentilly Terrace focuses on greed-driven, bad-faith political actors who lead in New Orleans.
Reviewed by
Isabella Zhou
Disclosure: This article is not an endorsement, but a review. The publisher of this book provided free copies of the book and paid a small fee to have their book reviewed by a professional reviewer. Foreword Reviews and Clarion Reviews make no guarantee that the publisher will receive a positive review. Foreword Magazine, Inc. is disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission’s 16 CFR, Part 255.
