Blues in the Wind-ReVisited By Whitney J. LeBlanc

Whitney J. LeBlanc has written the saga of a Creole family from Estilette Louisiana, against the backdrop of the birth of the blues.  In the 1930s, Phillip Fergerson's marriage to Martha, the beautiful Creole woman of his dreams turns into nightmares.  Instead of becoming the doctor he promised to be, he becomes a high school teacher, and events of murder, lynching, voodoo and sexual abuse by a priest, set in motion the disintegration of the family.  Martha's brother, Lightfoot, performs blues music in the juke-joints as he witnesses the beginning of the blues as an art form.  We follow the early blues legends from Robert Johnson, to Bessie Smith to Leadbelly to Lightnin' Hopkins and BB King as they sing their way through the Delta.  Martha, a proud and devoted Catholic, looks on in horror as one by one of her family falls under the influence of the devil's gut-bucket music.  With his marriage falling apart, Phillip finds himself in the arms of a woman from his past.  Each of the four children go their separate ways and Martha blames it all on the influence of the sinful music.  She takes her revenge.  It is a story filled with love, lust, murder, voodoo and adventure.

This is a historical fiction book available in Ebook edition, paperback and hardback.  It is a revision.  According to the author, in the front of this book he explains, "This novel...is the result of what is called an unfortunate, or rather fortunate, decision by the publisher, who in 2011 decided not to do a second printing of my novel Blues in the Wind and subsequently returned all rights to me, the author"

"I decided to begin this saga during the birth of the blues that took place in the 1930s.  All of the action in the lives of my characters was influenced by the actual historical events of the time in which they lived.  All of the blues makers mentioned actually toured that part of the country during the time period they are mentioned in the story....I restructured the story as the "prequel" for the novels Shadows of the Blues and Bodacious Blues."

~My thoughts~
I enjoyed this book.  The characters were realistic and the story line was interesting.  This book confirmed my suspicions that every race has some kind of prejudice towards the poor of the same race they are.  It is a sad fact of life that not everyone accepts others just the way they are.