About the Book
The Laced Chameleon is dramatic irony in the rich tradition of the TV series, Columbo.
New Orleanian Francesca Dumas is The Laced Chameleon. Mademoiselle Francesca Dumas is a quadroon (one-quarter African American) and concubine of a New Orleans banker, Joachim Buisson. Courted by moneyed white men, Francesca, a chameleon, leads a sheltered life of elegant gowns and lavish balls until a bullet shatters her dream world. While awaiting the arrival of the Union Navy among a throng gathered atop a Mississippi River levee April 25, 1862, Francesca’s lover is shot dead by her side. Rain-soaked and blood-stained Francesca vows revenge.
The grieving Francesca is evicted from Joachim’s house by his family who refuses to honor the lovers’ plaçage (concubinage) contract. Francesca’s life becomes intertwined with a homeless hungry white woman and her children when she shares her last Confederate dollars to buy food for them. Francesca’s investigation of the woman’s plight lands her work a spy for Major General Benjamin Butler’s army occupying New Orleans. As Francesca struggles with her identity to make principled choices between another plaçage arrangement and independence, an acquaintance is murdered and her best friend, Emily, is kidnapped.
Francesca works to recover Emily and avenge Joachim. Her arduous mental and physical journey takes a circuitous route, far from a concubine’s life of extravagant balls, lace, and leisure and into the perilous abyss between foreign, Union, and Confederate spies, leading to the Battle of Baton Rouge. Francesca gets help from New Orleans humanitarian Mother Henriette Delille, actress Sarah Butler, and Union spy John Mahan. Can Francesca’s determination and wit find and defeat a three-time murderer?
____________________________________________________________________________________________________
A Note from Bob:
In America, race matters. Within the artificial construct of race, color and class has mattered for centuries; and for that matter, still matter today. A new methodically researched novel, The Laced Chameleon, sets forth the story of a young New Orleans woman in a life-changing hero’s journey during the summer of 1862 that enables readers to witness color and class struggles at the eve of emancipation. How did she become a chameleon? Sex between white men and African, Native American, and mixed-race women produced offspring known as mulattos, quadroons, and octoroons. Mulattos have no white grandparents, but a white parent and an African or Native American parent. Quadroons have three white grandparents, while octoroons have seven white great-grandparents.
These arranged unions between white men and women of color existed in antebellum New Orleans society by contract in a recognized extralegal system called plaçage. In The Laced Chameleon, Francesca Dumas was a quadroon. While in a plaçage arrangement, Francesca and her contemporaries were known as placées. Race and class matter in Francesca’s story.
Though this is a work of fiction, the mores, economic, and social options of women of color depicted in New Orleans, and historic events of 1862 are real.
____________________________________________________________________________________________________
Partial List of Nonfiction Characters Appearing in The Laced Chameleon
Benjamin, Judah P., US Senator; Confederate Secretary of State
Browne, Thomas, Owner of the Singer Sewing Machine Agency
Hildreth-Butler,
Sarah, Actress, wife of General Butler
Butler, Andrew, Colonel, US Army; brother of General Butler
Butler, Benjamin F., Major General, US Army
Casanave, Pierre, Founder of Undertaking Service
Casanave, Peter, Son of Pierre, Undertaking Service
Cocks, Arianna*, Daughter of Annabelle
Cocks, Annabelle*, Daughter of John G. Cocks
Cocks, John G., New Orleans Judge
Cocks, Able*, Son of Annabelle
Corlin, Martha*, Confederate Sympathizer
Delille, Henriette, Founder and Mother Superior, Sisters of Holy Family
Dumas, Alexandre, Author of The Count of Monte Cristo
Foster, Thomas, Owner of a New Orleans slave sales depot
Heidiseck,
Charles Camille, Owner of Heidiseck & Company Wines, Reims, France
Jobert, Rev. J.B., Pastor, St. Augustine Catholic Church
Lille, Sarpy, Officer, Union Bank of New Orleans
Lovell, Mansfield, Major General, Confederate States Army
Mahan, John, General Butler’s most trusted Spy
Nixon, James, Owner/Publisher, New Orleans Daily Crescent
Packwood, Theodore, Owner of Belle Chasse Plantation
Rusha, E.M., Owner of EM Rusha. Importer of Fine Wines & Liquors
Strong, George B., US Army, Major, General Butler’s Chief of Staff
Tunnard, William H., Confederate Army Sergeant, 3rd Louisiana Infantry Regiment
Zunts, James E., Investor and Co-owner of the City Hotel
____________________________________________________________________________________________________
Bibliography
| __________ | New Orleans Maps and Photographs | New Orleans Public Library | New Orleans | 2013 |
| __________ | New Orleans Photographs | University of New Orleans | New Orleans | 2014 |
| Arthur, Stanley C. | Old New Orleans | Heritage Books | Westminster | 1936 |
| Bland, T.A. | Life of Benjamin F. Butler | Lee and Shepard | New York | 1879 |
| Blassingame, John W. | Black New Orleans | University of Chicago Press | Chicago | 1973 |
| Butler, Benjamin F. | Autobiography and Personal Reminiscences | A.M. Thayer & Company | Boston | 1892 |
| Civil War Society | Encyclopedia of the Civil War | Portland House | New York | 1997 |
| Daggett, Melissa | Henry Louis Rey, Spiritualism, and Creoles of Color in Nineteenth-Century New Orleans (a Theses) | University of New Orleans | New Orleans | 2009 |
| Davis, Cypbian | Henriette Delille: Servant of Slaves Witness to the Poor | Archdiocese of New Orleans | New Orleans | 2004 |
| Dunfour, Charles L. | The Night the War Was Lost | University of Nebraska Press | Lincoln | 1990 |
| Gardner, Charles | Gardner’s New Orleans Directory | Charles Gardner | New Orleans | 1866 |
| Gessler, Diana Hollingsworth | Very New Orleans | Algonquin Books | Chapel Hill | 2006 |
| Goudeaux, Doris | Interview Re: Venerable Mother Henriette Delille | Sisters of the Holy Family | New Orleans | 2013 |
| Hennick, Louis C. | The Streetcars of New Orleans | Pelican Publishing Company | Gretna | 1975 |
| Jones, John W. | Confederate Currency | The Olive Press | West Columbia | 2002 |
| Kein, Sybil | Creole: The History and Legacy of Louisiana’s Free People of Color | Louisiana State University Press | Baton Rouge | 2000 |
| Kendall, John Smith | History of New Orleans | Lewis Publishing Company | Chicago | 1922 |
| LeDoux, Jerome G. | War of the Pews | Margaret Media, Inc. | Donaldsonville | 2011 |
| Parton, James | General Butler in New Orleans | Mason Brothers | New York | ‘1864 |
| Pollard, Edward Alfred | The Lost Cause | Gramercy Books | New York | 1886 |
| Richey, Thomas | The Battle of Baton Rouge | Virtualbookworm.com | College Station | 2012 |
| Southern, Eileen | The Music of Black Americans, Third Edition | Norton & Company | New York | 1997 |
| Tunnard, William H. | A Southern Record | ____________ | Baton Rouge | 1866 |
| US Army | FM 24-20 Field Wire Techniques | Department of the Army | Washington | 1956 |
| Valezquez, Loreta J. | The Woman in Battle | Dustin, Gilman & Company | Richmond | 1876 |
| Winkler, H. Donald | Stealing Secrets | Cumberland House | Naperville | 2010 |
| Winter, John David | The Civil War in Louisiana | Louisiana State University Press | Baton Rouge | 1991 |
____________________________________________________________________________________________________