Finding Myself Lost in Louisiana
Winner of the 2024 Summerlee Book Prize for Nonfiction
In Finding Myself Lost in Louisiana, author Keagan LeJeune brilliantly weaves the unusual folklore, landscape, and history of Louisiana along with his own family lineage that begins in 1760 to trace the trajectory of people’s lives in the Bayou State. His account confronts the challenging environmental record evident in Louisiana’s landscapes. LeJeune also celebrates and memorializes traditions of some underrepresented communities in Louisiana, communities that are vanishing or have vanished—communities including the author’s own.
Each section in the memoir is a journey to a fascinating place, but it’s also a search for LeJeune’s own sense of belonging. The book is an adventure and a pilgrimage across Louisiana to explore its future and to reckon with feelings of loss and anxiety accompanying climate disasters. LeJeune travels to Louisiana’s geographic center to learn what waits there. He chases the ghosts of Hot Wells, a shuttered healing resort, and he kneels at the tomb of folk saint Charlene Richard. With every adventure, every memory, he ends up much closer to home.
Awards
- , Winner - Summerlee Book Prize
Like any good journey, there are places of beauty along the way to stop and admire. I could point to LeJeune’s impressive interweaving of the personal, cultural, historical, and legendary, but more specifically, I pored over several descriptive passages, savoring words as rich as a good crawfish étouffée. The book is full of the charisma that draws people to this place.
Keagan LeJeune argues that despite the challenges of climate change, a troubled economy, and racial inequity, the idiosyncrasies of Louisiana’s geography, mythology, and people make it a place worth fighting for.
Combining memoir with careful research, LeJeune’s work approaches the culture and landscape of Louisiana through the lens of solastalgia, a term coined by Glenn Albrecht for the feeling of homesickness when one has not left home. Finding Myself Lost in Louisiana beautifully depicts Louisiana’s folklore and traditions through the personal journey of its narrator.
In a work that seamlessly integrates history, travelogue, and personal reflection, LeJeune captures the cultures the culture of Louisiana and takes the pulse of his people.
Finding Myself Lost in Louisiana is an important reminder about the complexities related to the power of place. The author’s experiences resonate with those enduring life in the region while providing insight into the traditions, mythologies, and history of an often-misunderstood part of the nation.
Keagan LeJeune is an award-winning author, professor of English at McNeese State University, past president of the Louisiana Folklore Society, and former editor of its journal, Louisiana Folklore Miscellany. He has collected stories about Louisiana’s legends for more than twenty-five years.
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