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Outside Child — Reviews
In Alice Wilson-Fried's debut mystery, Outside Child, pre-Katrina New Orleans comes alive again with patois and a poignancy. Fast paced, down home and real, Outside Child rivets you to the page, keeps you turning pages and brings a vanished New Orleans back.
Cara Black
Author of the Aimee LeDuc series
The tenor and allure of Alice Wilson-Fried's Outside Child is steeped in the mysteries of New Orleans, and some of its secrets are revealed in this, her debut novel.
Gary Phillips
Author of Bangers
Outside Child is a Creole stew of crime, politics, and Southern manners that gives me a true flavor of New Orleans before all that water washed away some of the spice. Alice creates a female protagonist who's authentic and real. The sibling relationship that's central to the story evokes Walter Mosley's Easy Rawlins and the colorful relationships that make that world so exciting.
Kevin Arkadie
Writer/Producer, New York Undercover, The Temptations, Soul Food, The Series, and The Shield
A fascinating new character makes an entrance in Alice Wilson-Fried's Outside Child (KOMENAR, $24.95). In pre-Katrina New Orleans, we meet Ladonis Washington, the sole black employee in an otherwise all-white public relations firm. Ambitious to a fault, she attempts to ignore hints of the firm's double-dealings, but when a friend gets chewed up in the blades of an excursion paddle wheeler, she finally decides to investigate. Attempting to help, but just as often muddying the already-stagnant waters, is Ladonis' dope-smoking brother, HeartTrouble, a man not averse to running a few scams of his own.
Heavy on atmosphere and character, Child evokes a New Orleans that is, sadly, no longer there. But in these pages, all the wiles and woes of the seductive city are trotted out as Ladonis prowls its now-vanished streets and waterways, experiencing its crumbling tenements and moss-draped oaks, glorying in the city's spicy gumbo of blacks, whites, Cajuns, Creoles, Indians, and alligators. Ladonis makes such a memorable debut that I hope this outside child (slang for illegitimate) returns soon to stick it to The Man.
Betty Webb, Small Press Reviewer
Mystery Scene Magazine
Download a PDF of this review (4 MB)
An "outside child," as Alice Wilson-Fried informs us as an introduction to Outside Child, her debut novel, is a child born of a relationship between a married man and an unmarried woman. It is a term in use in New Orleans (though not exclusively) where Outside Child is set, and, as Wilson-Fried's fine, complex story unfolds, it takes the meaning of the term across a number of different levels while staying true to its original definition.
New Orleans is a city that is almost immediately addictive, yet which gives up its buried mysteries reluctantly, if at all. The only way to truly know it is to access the mind and memories of its residents. Wilson-Fried, a New Orleans native, takes her readers on a journey through the city that includes the tourist haunts as well as the neighborhood mix that gives the city its true flavor, one that most visitors to the city obtain but of a hint.
Ladonis Washington is the protagonist of Outside Child, a strong woman who by dint of strong will and hard work has overcome the twin grindstones of adversity and bad circumstance to earn an MBA and a place in the New Orleans business world. She continues, however, to have those jealous and uncomfortable with her success nipping at her heels --- what is referred to locally as the "crab in the barrel syndrome" --- and while she does not let it overcome her the effect is nonetheless wearing. These include Jack, her boyfriend, and HeartTrouble, who, in Washington’s own words, is her "no-account, con artist" brother. The bright spots in Washington's life are her office job with Floating Palace Steamboat Company and Tim Ganen, the man who is guiding her through the minefield of executive employment. When Ganen suddenly and suspiciously experiences a grisly death within the paddlewheel of the Magnolia Belle, the Floating Palace's prize steamboat, Washington takes it upon herself to conduct her own investigation into the violent end of the one man above all others who was willing to give her a chance in the corporate world. Washington's investigation is not exactly welcomed by the corporate higher-ups at Floating Palace. Her primary source of help, surprisingly, comes from HeartTrouble, whose canny street sense is of more use than Washington's book knowledge as Washington jumps with both feet into a mire that mixes equal part corporate corruption and street violence. And it is the relationship between HeartTrouble and Washington, as well as the cultural and social intricacies of New Orleans, that is the true, subtle strength of Outside Child, the mystery which is its foundation notwithstanding. New Orleans, for better or worse, is a city whose social elements blend and mix, but have never quite set; Outside Child provides a subtle glimpse behind that curtain.
Outside Child is a view of New Orleans as it was prior to Katrina; Wilson-Fried is presently working on a sequel to Outside Child that is set in post-Katrina New Orleans, a place where the dynamics in place prior to the storm's landfall are still in place, even as parts of the landscape have changed. It will no doubt be as intriguing as Outside Child is. This is an impressive debut from an author whose best work is no doubt yet to come.
Joe Hartlaub
Alice Wilson-Fried's mystery novel, Outside Child, introduces readers unfamiliar with pre-Katrina New Orleans to a society where people can either transcend the social law of gravity in order to rise or must struggle against the social law of gravity in order not to fall. Through the eyes of Ladonis Washington, readers see what Ladonis sees and rejoice or cringe with her as she makes her way through the menace and puzzle of the corporate jungle. This mystery reveals the dilemma of a young woman who, on her way up, tries hard not to lose her way. Her self-imposed demand to solve a status-changing murder tests her resolve, her convictions, and the values she holds dear. And throughout the novel, steadfast, moves the leitmotif of the great river and the paddleboats that ply the waters of the Great Mississippi.
Anne Fox
Amazon.com five-star review
Outside Child is a remarkable book in that while ostensibly a "mystery story," it really is a novel about New Orleans and the folk who have lived and worked there. It is an encomium of how class, gender, race and kin, combine to provide an understanding of the glory, pride and family values of those who created New Orleans, while having to surmount the history of the repression of both class and white supremacy. The people in the book are treated with an understanding and respect that is reminiscent of John Oliver Killens' Youngblood. I can think of no higher praise.
Percy Brazil
Amazon.com five-star review
Outside Child is a wonderful mystery set in pre-Katrina New Orleans, by first-time novelist Alice Wilson-Fried. The characters, setting, and story are interesting and completely believable. The author has a strong voice and knows her subject well.
In New Orleans, the term "outside child" describes one born to a married man and unmarried woman, disowned by the father. It metaphorically extends to any outsider. The title refers literally to a particular character's role in the plot, while also describing all of the characters at once, perhaps the author herself, and even (as we know following Katrina) the city of New Orleans and its inhabitants.
The characters (with nicknames like Redboy, Honey Man, L'il Wolf, and HeartTrouble) are interesting and realistic. The brief words of advice from Grandma Lucille which pepper the story with juicy, down-home, and dead-on wisdom make the reader wish for a Grandma Lucille of one's own. The main character and her role in unraveling the mystery are realistic and believable, unlike many other current female (and male) mystery protagonists. Her brother, HeartTrouble, is a brilliant depiction of the conflict inherent in making one's way in a non-accepting world.
The author knows her subject, the Louisiana riverboats, New Orleans politics, and the city's business world, well. This reviewer most appreciated the frequent and completely natural references to the remnants of history, from jazz to slavery, that dot the New Orleans and riverboat landscape.
The author's style is easy, crisp, and flowing. The denouement and solution to the mystery might have been a bit tighter, but this reviewer finds that limitation in virtually every mystery around, so this first-time mystery novelist can hardly be faulted for a general feature of the genre.
The only other limitation is that I enjoyed the color and setting so much that I wished for more--more smells, more music, more everything. The upcoming sequel, with the same core characters, is reported to be about Katrina, which the author's family suffered and survived. This reader awaits that sequel eagerly.
Candace Cohn
"Mystery Fan," Marengo, IL
Amazon.com five-star review
Outside Child is a fast, gripping read - an inside look at a foreign country hidden deep inside the glitter of New Orleans. The only rule is SURVIVE. The only law is TRUST NOBODY.
No reader will skim or skip a word of this book.
The storyteller, a young black woman who follows the much-touted path of education and hard work to the nice neighborhood and the enchanted land of big names and big money and a glamorous job with a Mississippi riverboat company is compelling. Her fear is insistent as she learns that the bad guys look just like the good guys, sometimes better, and every step of her descent into the bowels of the riverboat could be an entrance to another level of Dante's Inferno.
This book epitomizes the reason I co-founded the San Francisco Writers Conference. The author has a captivating story to share and a mesmerizing voice - and should be read. Now.
Wendy Nelder
Co-founder, San Francisco Writers Conference
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