Winner of the PEN/Southwest Fiction Award
The Reverend Corina Youngblood, minister of the African Spiritual Church of Mercy, is a woman powered by Jesus and the santos. Her corner store, St. Jude Lamb of Light Botanica, which caters to the eclectic religious and spiritual needs of New Orleans, is threatened by her Cuban ex-lover and mentor Elroy Delgago's plans to open a K-mart-like Superbotanica nearby. Gus Houston, a displaced former army officer now ersatz chaplain at an exclusive girl's school, stumbles into Corina's store, discovers her mesmerizing powers, and strikes up a profitable and prophetic relationship, sending Corina his troubled students for consultation. When Gus hits on the idea of entering the wealthy white girls into the gospel singing competition during the Jazzfest, he triggers a series of events that has all sides evoking the spirits for good and ill. Davis combines religion, voodoo, New Age philosophy, and good old-fashioned capitalism, greed, envy and a host of other unsavory motives in his entertaining first novel.