John Shelton Reed signs DIXIE BOHEMIA


TALK AT 5:30

In the years following World War I, the New Orleans French Quarter attracted artists and writers with low rent, a faded charm, and colorful street life. By the 1920s Jackson Square became the center of a vibrant but short-lived bohemia. A young William Faulkner and his roommate William Spratling, an artist who taught at Tulane, were among the "artful and crafty ones of the French Quarter," In Dixie Bohemia John Shelton Reed introduces Faulkner's circle of friends ranging from the distinguished Sherwood Anderson to a gender-bending Mardi Gras costume designer and brings to life the people and places of New Orleans in the jazz age. Reed begins with Faulkner and Spratling's self-published homage to their fellow bohemians, Sherwood Anderson and Other Famous Creoles. . A charming and insightful glimpse into an era, Dixie Bohemia describes the writers, artists, poseurs, and hangers-on of the New Orleans art scene in the 1920s and illuminates how this dazzling world faded as quickly as it began.