WHITEY

A New Orleans Noir Novel

“The truth is sometimes a packaged lie, like peace and love. Whitey hadn’t known love or peace in a long time.”

In the Indian Village neighborhood of New Orleans’ 9th Ward, there are men who move through the world invisible, and then there is Whitey. Fifty years old, bald, and scarred from ear to ear, Whitey was a legend of the streets—a man who lived with a regal, drunken confidence even when he was walking stark naked down a highway with a bottle of wine.

When Whitey is killed on that highway, mistaken for a missing link in human evolution, his death sets off a chain reaction through the broken sidewalks of his old neighborhood.

Max used to be a writer. He used to make "wine" out of the neighborhood chaos. But now, he’s spent a year diving behind hedges and jumping over fences just to avoid his old crew—the thieves, the dopefiends, and the "functioning lowlifes" he grew up with. His wife is gone, his desk is buried under junk mail, and his talent is drying up.

But you can't outrun the 9th Ward.

When the unofficial leader of the tribe, Buster, climbs through Max's window with the news of Whitey’s death, Max is pulled back into a world of whiskey-soaked memories, stolen parking meters, and the heavy scent of creosote. To give Whitey the "Viking Burial" he always wanted, Max and the boys will have to pull off one last, atmospheric conspiracy—one that involves a stolen sailboat, a bottle of cognac, and enough fire to light up Lake Pontchartrain.

Raw, hilarious, and deeply moving, Whitey is a masterclass in regional noir. It is a story about the "syntax of the streets," the burden of memory, and the bittersweet fruit of a life lived completely, dangerously naked.