The Wrecked, Blessed Body of Shelton Lafleur

John Gregory Brown's first novel, Decorations in a Ruined Cemetery, earned not only the highest critical acclaim but also a prestigious Lyndhurst Prize and the 1994 Lillian Smith Award from the Southern Regional Council. In this novel, Brown returns to his native Louisiana with a remarkable story of a young black orphan who endures uncommon tragedy and finds unlikely redemption. It is New Orleans during the Depression, and Shelton Lafleur, eight years old, tumbles from the top branches of a live oak tree, crippling him for life. But sweet deliverance arrives in the form of a wily man named Minou, who takes Shelton into his lively family and under his worldly tutelage. Now an elderly artist who has found fame as a painter of black southern life, Shelton recounts the dramatic events that led him and Minou to unravel his haunted, entangled past. A compelling testament to the age-old powers of benevolence and forgiveness, this graceful, ambitious novel firmly establishes John Gregory Br