Soul Kitchen by Poppy Z. Brite
Three Rivers Press 2006
ISBN 0-307-23765-6
288 pages

D*U*C*K
Subterranean Press 2007
1-59606-076-x
132 pages

Long-time fans of Poppy Z. Brite will be well aware that she has a new entry into her Rickey and G-man series, Soul Kitchen. For those of you have yet to immerse yourself into the world of these two chefs, who lately have become owners of their own successful restaurant, it’s the perfect time to find out what you’ve been missing. While Soul can certainly be read and enjoyed on its own, the best thing to do is to buy the previous two books in the series, Prime and Liquor and also invest in some Subterranean Press editions of the companion chapbooks and delightful “backstory” to the Rickey and G-man relationship, The Value of X. (A sentimental favorite of mine as it follows the guys when they were teens and first realized their relationship was about being more than just friends.) The one thing you need to know for sure, though, is that while the books are all about good food and maintaining relationships both personal and professional (and in the latest book there’s also a disturbing mystery), more than anything they are love letters to New Orleans. Just as Travis McGee is all about Florida and Spencer lives for Boston, (and even Carrie Bradshaw saved her most intimate revelations for New York) the stories of Rickey and G-man are told around the beautiful allure of their home city. Soul Kitchen is no exception to that rule and should be a welcome addition to all connoisseurs of truly fine Southern writing.

In a change from the earlier books, Soul opens with the brutal murder five years earlier of a famous New Orleans restaurateur. The chef was convicted of that crime, but when the narrative turns to the present, and Rickey and G-man’s restaurant, Liquor, readers learn that DNA evidence has set Milford Goodman free. Unemployed and hopeless, he shows up looking for a dishwashing position. Rickey recognizes him as the great talent they had known and worked with more than a decade before and immediately gives him a job as a cook. Milford is just as good of a chef as Rickey (maybe even a bit better as he seems to have a natural gift akin to a musician’s ability with perfect pitch), which while good for the customers, begins to affect the high-strung chef and owner in small ways. It is a physical injury he suffers that really puts him in danger, though, and combined with the self-imposed pressure to stay creative and the dangling prospect/pressure of a new professional opportunity, Rickey finds himself suddenly, and hopelessly, addicted to prescription pain killers. Just like that, he needs the pills to stay in control, to get the job done, to make it through his shifts in the kitchen. And just like that, G-man suddenly finds himself faced with losing the person who means more to him than anything.

I wasn’t kidding when I said Brite’s books were about relationships.

As Rickey navigates the blurry area of need versus anger at his addiction, G-man finds himself having to find ways to deal with the fires that his partner’s frayed nerves are stoking all over their professional kitchen. (The worst is a flameout that sends their excellent dessert chef out the door.) The situation gets murkier when Rickey’ drug-doling physician helps him make a connection with a group of businessmen looking for a chef-consultant for a restaurant opening on a new casino boat. It’s a good opportunity for Rickey (fairly easy money he thinks) and an even better one for Milford, who is still adjusting to life outside of prison. But as the plot rolls along, it becomes clear that there is more to the job than it seems, especially for the vulnerable Milford. That’s when the unsolved murder takes center stage and the story breaks wide open.

In addition to the usual mouth-watering descriptions of food (all kinds of food this time as the casino kitchen intends to serve up international cuisine), Brite also reveals some interesting aspects about Mardi Gras that will be welcome to outsiders. There are also moments of conversation like this one, which ring all the more poignantly in the wake of Katrina:

“All New Orleanians gotta have at least three garbage bags of beads in their attics,” Tanker said. “It’s, like, the law. Otherwise you’re some kinda Communist.”

What I like about Brite as a writer most, though, is that while she crafts compulsively readable stories, they are not all lightness and humor — social politics are often discussed by her characters in compelling and brutally honest ways. A perfect example of this is when Rickey and G-man discuss hiring Milford with their other chefs.

“Wait a minute,” said Tanker, who’d been listening from the dessert nook. “You mean to tell me Louisiana wasn’t testing for DNA in trials, what — ten years ago?”

“Not always, I guess, and not when the victim was a rich white lady and the defendant was a black guy with a public defender. We figure DNA evidence has been around forever because of all the forensic TV shows and shit, but even now, Louisiana’s like eight years behind on DNA tests.”

“You expecting too much from the system, Tank,” said Terrance. “You think they gonna miss a chance to fry a big black buck for killing a white lady just cause the evidence don’t match up?”

Rickey turned and looked at him. It was about the only bitter thing he’d ever heard Terrance say. “You OK man?”

“Yeah, sure. I just seen this shit too many times. White people always talking about how race relations are so great in New Orleans because they can hold a conversation with black folks in Wal-Mart. Black man gets railroaded into prison, they just shake their heads and blame the public schools and the welfare system.”

Even though Brite makes her political point more than once in her books, they are still mostly about a couple of guys cooking, living and loving in Louisiana. This is perhaps more clear in her upcoming novella, D*U*C*K, than in previous books. She wrote D*U*C*K after the hurricane, but it takes place before the storm and involves a large catering job taken on by the guys for the South Louisiana branch of the hunting and conservation group, Ducks Unlimited. Published in limited edition and due out in January from the wonderful Subterranean Press, D*U*C*K* is again about Rickey overextending himself, again about amazing food, but also about former New Orleans Saints quarterback Bobby Hebert, Rickey’s childhood idol and the banquet’s guest of honor. Interestingly however, even though the dinner is taking place in Opelousas, a Cajun town three hours from the city, it is still also about appreciating what is different about New Orleans. Consider Rickey’s thoughts on the trip:

“Opelousas was fine; they could be back in New Orleans in three hours if need be. The thought of being more than three hours from New Orleans or unable to return to the city immediately for any reason filled Rickey with a deep and nameless dread. He supposed he wasn’t very adventurous in some ways, but adventure outside of New Orleans had never worked out all that well for him. Outside the city limits, the true heart of darkness begins.”

Of course, even Rickey knows this is a bit ridiculous, the trip is mostly about “cooking for Bobby Goddam Hebert,” but by going away from New Orleans, even for just a short business trip, he and G-man reassert how much they love their home. That does not at all have anything to do with the plot (which involves planning for the banquet, coping with a homeland security-cenric small town sheriff and being alternately amused and annoyed by a former employee’s feature story in the Big Easy), but it’s there, and for readers who have been with Brite from the beginning of this series, it will be impossible to ignore.

In her brief introduction to D*U*C*K, Brite explains just what this novella is, and that it is certainly not part of “Katriniana”, the “new body of literature [which] has begun to emerge from New Orleans, South Louisiana and the Gulf Coast.” Her contribution to that isolated genre will come, she admits, but D*U*C*K is not it.

“D*U*C*K is the first piece of original fiction I’ve completed since the storm. I think of it as a slightly alternate-universe fiction, a kind of fairy tale set in the same world of chefs and restaurants I’ve been writing about for several years now, but in which the storm didn’t come to New Orleans. Maybe it took a different path (there’s a slight hint of that in this story), maybe it never entered the Gulf in the first place. I plan to deal with it in the next Liquor novel, Dead Shrimp Blues, and probably another one after that. Just for now, though, I wanted to write a story where the bitch wasn’t a factor. Doing so was a balm for my soul and helped me get closer to the time when I will have to read all that Katriniana I’ve collected and write some of my own.”

I can’t blame Brite for holding off on the storm, or for wanting to write another Rickey and G-man story that is just about their issues and not about the issues of the city (and even the nation) brought on by the actions of the “the bitch.” Honestly, and this comes from an admitted long-time fan, I was too busy enjoying both Soul Kitchen and D*U*C*K to think about where Katrina was in the storyline. I was too busy just loving my time with the guys and their world to care about anything outside it. And that is the way reading should be — it should be all about the story you have in your hands and not the one missing from it. Time enough for Katrina to visit later. Right now, these books are all about Poppy Z. Brite and the wonderful world she has created around a restaurant named Liquor.