Chloe's Mistigri

Book excerpt: "Something under the cold water wrapped around her waist, and Chloe cried out, thrashing to shake it loose as the tree root, her saving grace, sliced deeper into the crook of her arm." On a spring day in 1934, newcomers to rural Louisiana meet during trouble on a flooding bayou. Eleven-year old Chloe Boisvert and twelve-year old PJ Benoit couldn't know this adventure would mark the beginning of a wonderful, and heartbreaking, relationship.Chloe arrives in Vermilion Parish from Paris, France, where she was educated by Maria Montessori and thrived in the company of the musicians, writers and artists who frequented her uncle's nightclub and the salons she attended. PJ comes from San Antonio, Texas, with a sack of apples, a half-eaten ham steak, and dreams of flying for the US Army Air Corps. From their initial encounter, we go back to learn how Chloe and PJ came to be here, then accompany Chloe as she strives to escape poverty and Jim Crow and PJ as he and the Flying Tigers battle the Japanese in the air over China.A fascinating historical novel and dazzling coming-of-age story, Chloe's Mistigri navigates a complex world filled with beauty and tragedy, folding the lives of Chloe Boisvert and PJ Benoit into one of the most dynamic periods of change in human history. From jazz age Paris to depression era Louisiana, from war-torn China to wartime New York and Havana, where else can we find a story of love and courage that so stunningly intertwines our protagonists with the likes of Louis Armstrong, Josephine Baker, Madame Chiang Kai-shek, Ernest Hemingway, and the famous mobster Meyer Lansky? Thomas L Hall applies extraordinary storytelling to a wealth of historic fact in an epic tale of friendship and love, conflict and loss, courage and perseverance. Chloe' Mistigri spans the years 1927 to 1943, one of the most transformative periods in the history of human endeavor, and embodies the best and worst of humanity in colorful characters - characters in whom we may recognize ourselves, and our neighbors, whether they live across the street or across the sea.