Cloth,
$29.95
e-book
available
ISBN:
978-0-8071-5618-6
Thriller/
Historical fiction
320
pages
LSU
Press
Sept. 10, 2014
In this heart-racing
thriller, a series of gruesome deaths ignite feuds that burn a path from the
cotton fields to the courthouse steps, from the moss-draped bayous of Cajun
country to the bordellos of 19th century New Orleans, from the Civil War to the
Civil Rights era and across the Jim Crow decades to the Freedom Marches of the
1960s.
At the heart of the
story is the apparent suicide of elderly Civil War Col. Augustine Chastaine
who, two decades after the end of the Civil War, viciously slit the throat of
his wife and then shot himself. Sheriff Raifer Jackson, however, believes that
this may be a double homicide, and suspicion falls upon Jake Gold, an itinerant
peddler with many secrets to conceal, not the least of which is that he is a
Jewish immigrant in the post-Reconstruction South, where racial, religious and
ethnic prejudice abounds.
Jake must stay one
step ahead of the law, as well as the racist Knights of the White Camellia, as
he interacts with blacks and whites, former slaves, Cajuns, crusty white field
hands, and free men of color as he tries to keep one final promise before more
lives are lost and he loses the opportunity to clear his name.
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
CONTACT:
Marissa Curnutte
347.574.3136
FROM JAZZ PIANIST, MEDIA HOST, LAWYER, AND
PROFESSOR TO NOVELIST, MICHAEL H. RUBIN DEBUTS ‘THE COTTONCREST CURSE’
Historical thriller combines southern
lore with murder and mystery in what political strategist James Carville calls
a ‘powerful epic’
BATON ROUGE, La. – Garnering praise from New York Times best-selling authors and prominent political
strategist James Carville, “The Cottoncrest Curse” (September 10, 2014, LSU
Press) is an historically accurate, page-turning thriller from the multifaceted
jazz pianist, media host, lawyer, law professor, and now debut novelist Michael H. Rubin.
“The Cottoncrest Curse” is set across multiple generations and
tells a compelling and complex family story centered on itinerant peddler Jake
Gold.
The bodies of an elderly colonel and his young wife are discovered
on the staircase of their stately Louisiana plantation home. Within the
sheltered walls of the Cottoncrest plantation, Augustine and Rebecca Chastaine
have met their deaths under the same air of mystery as the colonel’s father,
who committed suicide at the end of the Civil War. Locals whisper about the
curse of Cottoncrest Plantation, but Sheriff Raifer Jackson knows that even a
specter needs a mortal accomplice and rules the apparent murder/suicide a
double homicide – with Jake as the prime suspect.
Assisted by his overzealous deputy, a grizzled Civil War
physician, and the racist Knights of the White Camellia, the sheriff directs a
manhunt through a village of former slaves, the swamps of Cajun country and the
bordellos of New Orleans. But Jake’s chameleon-like abilities enable him to
elude his pursuers. As a peddler who has built relationships by trading fabric,
needles, dry goods and especially razor-sharp knives in exchange for fur, Jake
knows the back roads of the small towns that dot the Mississippi River Delta,
and Jake has many secrets to conceal, not the least of which is that he is a
Jewish immigrant from Czarist Russia. Jake must stay one step ahead of his
pursuers while trying to keep one final promise before more lives are lost and
he loses the chance to clear his name.
“The Cottoncrest Curse” takes readers on the bold journey of
Jake’s flight within an epic sweep of treachery and family rivalry ranging from
the Civil War to the civil rights era as the impact of the 1893 murders ripples
through the 20th century and violence besets the owners of
Cottoncrest into the 1960s.
“Michael Rubin proves himself to be an exceptional storyteller in
his novel, ‘The Cottoncrest Curse,’” says Carville, who knows Louisiana
intimately. “The powerful epic is expertly composed in both its historical
content and beautifully constructed scenery. I highly recommend picking up this
book to catch a glimpse into life and conflict during the height of the Old
South.”
Rubin hits the road this fall to discuss and sign copies of “The
Cottoncrest Curse” on his cross-country book tour. As a nationally known legal
ethicist and humorist, he has given more than 375 major presentations
throughout the United States, Canada and the United Kingdom.
Find out more about The Cottoncrest Curse Blog Tour on the JKSCommunications Virtual Tour Page
Advanced Praise for
“The Cottoncrest
Curse”
“Michael Rubin proves himself to be an exceptional storyteller in
his novel, ‘The Cottoncrest Curse.’ The powerful epic is expertly composed in both its historical
content and beautifully constructed scenery. I highly recommend picking up this book to catch a glimpse into
life and conflict during the height of the Old South.”
– James Carville, political strategist and commentator
“In ‘The Cottoncrest Curse,’ Michael Rubin takes his readers on a compelling multigenerational journey that begins with the Civil War and ends in the
present day. A textured story of plantation owners, the descendants of
slaves, small-town Louisiana law enforcement, and Jewish merchants who live in and around a stately Louisiana plantation, ‘The
Cottoncrest Curse’ is impeccably researched, deftly plotted, and
flawlessly executed…Michael Rubin is a gifted and masterful storyteller. Highly recommended.”
– Sheldon Siegel, New York Times best-selling author of the Mike
Daley/Rosie Fernandez novels
“Michael Rubin’s debut novel, ‘The Cottoncrest Curse,’ introduces
us to a fresh new voice that
weaves talented prose and tack-sharp detail into an intriguing story set in Louisiana’s bayou country. In a historically accurate whodunit that spans multiple
generations, Rubin adroitly tackles cultural diversity, racial
tension and the dangers of keeping hidden truths while moving the plot toward a satisfying, well-crafted conclusion.”
– Alan Jacobson, national bestselling author of “Spectrum”
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Michael H. Rubin has
conquered many worlds, and now he is branching out into new territory –
fiction.
Rubin is a former professional jazz pianist and composer who has
played in the New Orleans French Quarter and a former television and radio
host. He is an accomplished lawyer who helps manage a law firm that has offices stretching
from California to Florida and from Texas and Louisiana to New
York.
He has served as an adjunct law professor at the Louisiana State University Law School for more than 30 years, and is a nationally
known speaker whose talks on topics such as legal ethics, negotiations, appellate
advocacy, real estate, finance and trial tactics have been widely praised throughout
the United States, Canada and the United Kingdom.
Rubin’s presentations combine an informal style with scholarship,
thought-provoking comments and humor. A former professional musician, Rubin
frequently closes his speeches by sitting down at the piano and singing
humorous songs composed specifically for the occasion. The nationally
distributed American Lawyer magazine, in writing about him, titled its
article “CLE Troubadour.” Attendees at Rubin’s talks have given him standing
ovations and enthusiastic ratings, including, “Best ethics talk I ever heard;”
“Rubin was great;” and “Rubin alone was worth the price of admission.”
Rubin has presented more than 375 major lectures and papers. He is
an author, coauthor, and contributing writer of 13 legal books and more than 30
articles for law reviews and periodicals, and his writings have been cited as
authoritative by state and federal courts, including state supreme courts and
federal appellate courts.
His latest legal book is “Louisiana Security Devices: A PrĂ©cis”
(Lexis/Nexis 2011), and his first novel, “The Cottoncrest Curse” is a legal
thriller and multi-generational saga to be published September 10, 2014 by the
award-winning LSU Press. The novel will be available nationwide in
bookstores and as an e-book.
Q&A with Michael H. Rubin
You’ve been a successful attorney for
years; what inspired you take on the new challenge of writing a thriller deeply
rooted in Southern history?
As a Louisiana native and history buff, I’ve always been
fascinated by Louisiana’s unique multicultural society, from the early French
and Spanish settlers who displaced and later oppressed the native population to
the 18th and 19th centuries’ freemen of color, the reprehensible slave trade,
the numerous immigrant groups, and those who came south during America’s expansion.
I sought to create a compelling story that ties the past to the present and
deals with an evolving sense of what constitutes “justice.”
How did you develop the main character of
Jake Gold, the chameleon-like peddler who becomes the subject of a massive
manhunt?
My great-grandfather, a Russian immigrant who began his career as
an itinerant peddler in the Deep South and who had encounters with marauding
bands of white supremacists, was the inspiration for Jake. Although the setting
is historically accurate, Jake and his adventures are purely fictional.
What is it about a southern plantation,
usually romanticized in fiction, that drew you for the setting of the book?
Both before the Civil War and during and after Reconstruction, plantations
were the crucibles for interactions between blacks and whites, between the
educated and the unschooled, between southern “aristocracy” and the merchant
class, between those whose livelihood was tied to the land and those whose only
interest was commerce, and between those who enforced laws (both just and
unjust) and those whose power emanated from guns and violence. All of these
came together on Louisiana plantations and form the basis for the novel.
Why were you interested in making cultural
diversity, racial tension, and the search for the truth the novel’s underlying
themes?
Truth and identity are intertwined. “The Cottoncrest Curse” is
concerned with three universal questions. Can we really know every significant
aspect of our family’s history? How are our relationships affected by our
preconceived stereotypes and by our own sense of identity? And, do we have an
obligation to tell the unvarnished truth if it helps some but injures others?
What kind of research went into writing
“The Cottoncrest Curse?”
A great deal of historical research underpins the entire book,
ranging from events in the Civil War, the plantation system in the 1890s, the
intricacies of sugar-cane agriculture, the background of the famous case of
Plessy v. Ferguson (the “separate-but-equal” litigation that arose in
Louisiana), which was overturned by the Brown v. Board of Education decision in
1954, and the Freedom Riders of the 1960s.
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