ROUSES_MayJun2019_Magazine-Print

BY THE BOOK by Justin Nystrom It’s just now lunchtime at Victor’s Cafeteria. A sunny glow filters down through skylights into the inviting din- ing roomwhere hungry customers, filled with anticipation from the aromas of smothered pork chops and fried shrimp, queue up along one paneled wall under a sign that reads, “Dave Robicheaux Eats Here.” It is unclear whether Dave — or his jolly and mercurial sidekick Clete Purcel — is in the building, but it matters not. In my imagina- tion both are present and very much alive for the legion of fans, who come from all over the world to this family restaurant on New Iberia’s Main Street — just for a chance to walk in the footsteps of the colorful charac- ters created by the town’s favorite son, James Lee Burke. Known as “The Robicheaux Series” in the world of popular fiction, Burke’s crime novels first appeared in 1987 with The Neon Rain , which debuted the troubled, quixotic figure of former New Orleans police detective Dave Robicheaux, as he brings the region’s bad guys to justice while facing the daily struggle of his own alcoholism and traumatic past. At the end of the second book in the series, Heaven’s Prisoners (1988), Burke re- locates his fictional hero to his hometown of New Iberia, where Dave begins work for the Iberia Parish Sheriff’s Department. In 1990 the third Robicheaux novel, Black Cherry Blues , won an Edgar Award, mystery writ- ing’s highest honor and an undeniable sign that Burke had “made it.” New Iberia has benefited from James Lee Burke’s writing. Of course, tourists have

photo by Romney Caruso

always been drawn to antebellum man- sions like The Shadows along scenic Bayou Teche. And foodies in search of boudin or shrimp Creole, armed with Macon Fry and Julie Posner’s fabulous 1992 Cajun Country Guide , have come for the town’s culinary treasures. But the Robicheaux series, which has been “translated into almost every lan- guage in the world,” has exposed the town to a far bigger audience, culminating in 2016 in what is now called the Books Along the Teche Literary Festival, a celebration of the region’s culture that unfolds the first week in April each year. Visitors to New Iberia seldom leave dis- appointed, entranced either by the picture postcard beauty of the town that Burke de- scribes in such loving detail or by the food that they eat during their stay. Victor’s is the most obvious first stop for the Robicheaux faithful. It’s difficult to go wrong with its à la carte offerings of Creole and Cajun comfort food served in an airy space built a century ago, when it housed a jewelry store. Diners with bigger appetites might, like Clete Purcel in 2003’s Last Car to Elysian Fields , pile their plate high “with dirty rice and gravy, kid- ney beans, and two deep-fried pork chops.” Likewise, hungry fans make the pilgrimage to the nearby Bon Creole, an unassuming, blocky building whose humble decor lends an authentic vibe to some of the best rendi- tions of regional specialties. And after enjoying these food landmarks, Burke’s fans owe it to themselves to dig deeper into the role food plays in his nov- els, in expressing the very culture and his- tory that they came to New Iberia to find in the first place. His critics and fellow writ-

ers agree that what makes Burke’s body of work stand above and beyond most other crime fiction is his lyrical depiction of South Louisiana, one that is by turns love letter and sorrowful lament. It’s no accident that food is a subtle yet important ingredient in Burke’s expression of the folk customs that make the region distinctive. For visitors, understanding the relationship culture has with food and setting offers an opportunity for a more fun- damental appreciation of what it means to love, celebrate and even mourn Louisiana in the way that Dave Robicheaux does. The bait shop and boat rental business that Dave runs with Batist, an ageless Afro- Creole man who had once known Dave’s fa- ther, becomes a frequent setting to express a relationship with the outdoors — and food. Dave describes, in 1992’s A Stained White Radiance , starting the fire for the grilled chicken and sausages he sells to fishermen, and how he “then fixed coffee and hot milk and bowls of Grape-Nuts for the three of us, and we ate breakfast on one of the tele- phone-spool tables under an umbrella out on the dock.” Dave might eat a mass-pro- duced convenience food for breakfast but, as he does so often in the series, he eschews the Keurig or even the microwave in favor of the local ritual of heating a pan of milk on the stove for café au lait . And a simple “fried-egg-and-ham sand- wich on French bread” carried out of Vic- tor’s in a styrofoam container to be eaten at a “giant crab-boil pavilion” in a small city park on the opposite side of Bayou Teche transports the reader into the lush beauty of a Louisiana winter where “the camellias along the bayou were in bloom and looked

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