Official book from author Mary Gehman. This is the only edition (2017) that is current officially in print.

The Free People of Color of New Orleans: An Introduction

Mary Gehman

Dville Press, LLC

An imaginative reconstruction of the life of the only woman executed in Louisiana's electric chair.A work of alternative history, A Savage Wisdom changes the story of Toni Jo Henry into a redemptive parable-a study in deception and personality transformation.The novel also dramatizes rumors surrounding the young beauty's deathrow dalliance with a handsome young sheriff.In this treatment, Toni Jo escapes the Great Depression and moves toward a world full of promise, only to be dragged into the alluring but dangerous underworld of New Orleans.These maneuvers place the novel in company with In Cold Blood, Truman Capote's book that launched the genre of "faction," fiction based on fact."Here is a powerful, page-turning account of crime and punishment, told in terms of the literary tradition of true crime stories that includes Capote's In Cold Blood and Mailer's The Executioner's Song. Norman German has created a worthy companion to and version of this all-American genre." George Garrett, novelist and poet laureate of Virginia.

A Savage Wisdom

Literature & Fiction

German, Norman

Genre Fiction

A fixture on the New Orleans music scene for years, native son Eddie Tebbe has attended multiple concerts a night, composed lyrics picked up and recorded by the likes of George Porter and Paul Sanchez, and made friends with anyone and everyone in the popular clubs. He has, as he says, felt the funk in his bones. Music is Eddie’s way to cope with the triple whammy life has dealt him: born with cerebral palsy, developed epilepsy as the result of a fall at age 9, and gradually consumed from his thirties on by Huntington’s disease. Yet he remains friendly, funny and outrageous as he flashes his famous smile. Now at age 50, Eddie is no longer able to write or to stay out late, instead offering the short stories, a play and his poetry he’s written through the years to his many loyal friends in this inspiring collection.Local writer Colman DeKay puts it well: “Eddie writes with simplicity, urgency and honesty about the town that he loves. He’s the real deal – a New Orleanian who, despite personal setbacks, grabs the city in a gigantic life-affirming hug.“He played the guitar like a GodI couldn’t keep my eyes off himFor the first time I didn’t feel oddThat was when I picked up a guitarAnd I finally fit in Eddie Tebbe in “Old Man With One Glove”

Sir Bone Funk: Living Life in the Key of Triumph

Tebbe, Eddie

Literary

No Other World is a fictional account based on the historic life of Marie Thereze (Coin Coin), a slave whose children with the Frenchman Pierre Metoyer were the founders of the Cane River community near Natchitoches, Louisiana pre-Civil War, still intact today. Norman German tells a sensitively imagined story of the relationship of Coin Coin and Pierre and how she must have felt when he left her to marry a white woman. Ernest Gaines awarded the book the Deep South Writer's Conference first prize in 1991. No Other World was first published in 1992 and again in 2000 by Blue Heron Press. This 3rd edition by DVille Press was published in 2020.

No Other World

German, Dr. Norman

This is the first collection of short stories by the well known New Orleans poet and spoken word artist Arthur Pfister aka Professor Arturo. Although Pfister has resided in Stamford, CT since Hurricane Katrina in 2005, his heart and muse are still in his native city. Themes range from spiritual to sheer chicanery and almost everything in between. Pfister's trademark of repetition and alliteration are evident in every page, and his ability to capture the language, colors, and sensations of the city's culture is pure joy to read. This book was first published in 2015 by Margaret Media, Inc. This second improved edition is by DVille Press 2020.

Jazz Stories

Pfister, Arthur

United States