The Sound of Building Coffins

by Louis Maistros

Book Overview

It is 1891 in New Orleans, and young Typhus Morningstar cycles under the light of the half-moon to fulfill his calling, re-birthing aborted foetuses in the fecund waters of the Mississippi River. He... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1592642551
• ISBN13: 9781592642557
• Release Date: March 2009
• Publisher: Toby Press
• Length: 358 Pages
• Weight: 1.38 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.2" x 5.9" x 8.7"

Customer Reviews

beyond words!

Hard to describe something like this!after reading many historical fiction novels I am amazed at the talent of this author.the story is so over the top with imagination, detail and how he makes this work is amazing. The first page will grab you and never let go!Being from New Orleans and knowing its rich and very unique history made it an even better read for me personaly. this book is fast and full of wild and crazy twists and turns.I still think about it weeks after reading.Just keep them coming!Thanks for awakening my sense of imagination definitly not too long,I didnt want it to end.

Written in a fine lyrical style

No city has a more individual culture than New Orleans, Louisiana. "The Sound of Building Coffins" is a magnificent novel from author Louis Maistros, as he crafts a novel that is distinctly New Orleans in origin. The story is of an infant supposedly possessed by the devil, and the community around him doing everything they can to save the child. Written in a fine lyrical style, "The Sound of Building Coffins" is a unique novel.

A Macabre Masterpiece of Magical Realism

Louis Maistros has written a whale of a tale with "The Sound of Building Coffins." Amazingly, it is his debut novel. This is a macabre masterpiece of magical realism, filled with the author's obvious love for New Orleans, where he makes his home in the 8th Ward neighborhood. His deep feelings for the Mighty Mississippi, whose mouth is just a bit downstream of the Mardi Gras City, are also evident. The novel opens in 1891, a period near the end of the Creole-age with its wonderful music, a combination of elements of West African work songs, slave spirituals, minstrel shows, and rural blues expression with European brass band instruments. A recurrent theme throughout this novel is death and rebirth. Now, in its death throes, this music gives birth to her natural heir - jazz and Ragtime. Music plays such an important role here - from the seductive sound of Buddy Bolden's cornet, (blasting out with the new jazz sound), to the strains of lapping river water, to the buzz of the locals, whispering their deepest secrets, to the roaring wind and waves of an enormous hurricane. The exotic and colorful cast of characters is large and lavish. Nine year-old Typhus Morningstar is the first person we meet. We find the young boy fulfilling his calling, tenderly rebirthing aborted fetuses in the waters of the Mississippi River under the light of the half-moon. He is almost always watched over by Mr. Marcus Nobody Special, who fishes nightly, looking for a particularly special catfish which he has yet to catch. All other fish are thrown back into the water, allowed to live and swim on. Typhus' father is an African American Baptist minister, Rev. Noonday Morningstar, who named his children for diseases: Malaria, Cholera, Diphtheria, Dropsy and Typhus. Morningstar, a widower for many years, doesn't care if folks mock his choice in names. "Morningstar saw life as a trial and death as a reward, a bridge to paradise - and he saw God's mysterious afflictions of the body as holy paths to that salvation." The Reverend, his children and Mr. Marcus all play an important role in the storyline. While Typhus performs his work by the river, across town a baby, born of Sicilian immigrants, is possessed by a terrible demon. The babe's father has just been lynched by a crowd of vigilantes. Doctors, priests and other well meaning do-gooders flee the humble home when faced with the demonic child. However, Rev. Morningstar is not one to be daunted. He and seven cohorts go to dispel the demon. Some of them never leave the house alive. However, dead or alive, these people will forever be effected by what happens that night. One of the characters who also plays a major role in "The Sound of Building Coffins," is Dropsy Morningstar. This innocent child-man's wide brown eyes continually examine the "journeys of ordinary threads through ordinary fabric, (be it shirt, rug or sock), for long minutes." It is as if he is searching "for hints of code, probing imagined or hidden mea

(4.5 stars) "In this city there is a long and curious relationship with death."

From the beginning of this unusual novel set in 1891 New Orleans, when a demon is cast out from a one-year-old child, to the massive destruction of a hurricane in 1906, Maistros leads his characters through a merry chase between the real and the unknown in the murky world of the dead. From the moment a number of Sicilian prisoners are lynched by an angry mob and a prison guard takes home a grisly souvenir, to the exorcism of evil from the baby son of one of the Sicilians, it is clear that this novel will not be bound by ordinary constraints, that the world of the spirit will be just as critical to this tale as what can be viewed by the naked eye. From an ancient voudou mambo to Coco Robicheaux, who steals the souls of naughty children, the novel is filled with extraordinary people, equally righteous, well-meaning and fatally flawed. On the night of the exorcism, seven enter the house where the baby moves with otherworldly energy; not all will live through the experience. Poverty is familiar to Noonday Morningstar, a Baptist minister and his family- Typhus, Cholera, Diphtheria, Malaria and Dropsy- and there is something to be said for the power of naming. The unseen world is barely removed from such an existence: Typhus rebirths lost babies: his father hears God's clear commands; Diphtheria and Malaria tend to the physical needs of men in sporting houses, flirting with death. But what begins that night echoes through the years, as the characters struggle with their lives and choices, a ragged, malevolent spirit raising havoc once called from the infant. As a young man, Buddy Bolden, the great jazz innovator, plays his horn beside the baby's crib. Buddy's tortured career will be touched by genius and depravity, by secrets and grace. And Dr. Jack, another witness, instigates his own rendezvous with fate as surely as he delivers young women of their unwanted babies with his potions. In an intricate dance of death and destiny, Maistros' brilliantly constructed characters gradually expose their troubled souls, anxious hearts and weighty emotional burdens. Locked in low-lying fog and superstition, in this New Orleans spirits frolic among the living and tortured souls are released at last to the peace of the next world. Masterfully maneuvering his hapless cast, Maistros performs an amazing feat of spiritual and literary legerdemain. Luan Gaines/ 2009.

Speechless, Stunned and Waiting For His Next Book

This book rocked my brain, broke my heart and captured the dark and often ugly "beauty" of New Orleans like no other book I've ever read. Having lived in the city for some years I am always skeptical when anyone tries to capture the essence of New Orleans and put it down on paper. Louis Maistros exceeded all expectations and left me stunned. He nailed it. The Sound of Building Coffins captured the threads of shining beauty, blinding pain, hope, loss of faith, love, regret, and unfailing redemption and managed to weave them all intricately into an amazing story that twisted and turned kept me up at night. I could not put this book down. I could not wait to finish it and yet when I turned the last page I felt a sinking sense of sadness - I wanted to read more. Maistros and his brilliant Sound of Building Coffins brought me home and at the same time reminded me why I left... and my relationship with catfish will never be the same.