EDWARDS, Louis 1962-

PERSONAL: Born 1962.

ADDRESSES: Home—New Orleans, LA. Agent—c/o Author Mail, Dutton, 375 Hudson St., New York, NY 10014.

CAREER: Writer. Has worked in public relations for the New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival and the New York JVC Jazz Festival, beginning 1986.

AWARDS, HONORS: PEN Oakland/Josephine Miles Award for excellence in literature, 1991, for Ten Seconds; Ten Seconds was named one of the best books of 1991 by Publishers Weekly.

WRITINGS:

NOVELS

Ten Seconds, Graywolf Press (St. Paul, MN), 1991.

N: A Romantic Mystery, Dutton (New York, NY), 1997.

Oscar Wilde Discovers America, Scribner (New York, NY), 2003.

SIDELIGHTS: Louis Edwards has penned three notable novels: the critically acclaimed Ten Seconds, the ambitious N: A Romantic Mystery, and the complex Oscar Wilde Discovers America. Ten Seconds recounts the life of Eddie, an African-American male, former high-school track star, refinery worker, and young husband. While Eddie watches a one hundred-yard-dash event at a high-school track meet in his small Louisiana hometown, Edwards takes the reader on a journey through Eddie's past, present, and future.

Edwards plays with the element of time in Ten Seconds. The ten chapters of the book are structured around the ten seconds that it takes a fast runner to finish the one-hundred-yard dash. The story skips forward and backward through Eddie's life, a technique that, according to Mason Buck of the New York Times Book Review, "allows the events of the future to illuminate those of the past." For instance, newlywed Eddie pledges to take care of his wife, but this scene does not occur until after the reader has witnessed Eddie's wife threatening to leave him because of his philandering and drug use.

Edwards paints a vivid picture of African-American culture and class with Eddie's inner monologue. Eddie ruminates on his inner self, his friends, and his family; his thoughts and recollections guide the reader through topics such as love, sex, friendship, youth, parenting, and liberty. Called "a strikingly poignant and polished debut" by Booklist contributor Donna Seaman, Ten Seconds was named by Publishers Weekly as one of the best books of 1991.

Edwards followed Ten Seconds with N: A Romantic Mystery. In this novel, protagonist Aimee DuBois investigates the murder of a teenager in a New Orleans, Louisiana, housing project. DuBois, an intellectual Creole woman who runs an alternative newspaper, must explore the hidden world of black society, and her investigation gives Edwards room to comment on race and class. The search for the teenager's killer leads DuBois to a variety of colorful characters, including a bookstore owner, an alluring drug dealer, a drug-dealing mother, a malicious minister, and a pregnant niece. Edwards shifts the point of view from third-person to first-person in a story that closely examines New Orleans.

Contrary to its title, the protagonist in Oscar Wilde Discovers America is William Traquair, a young black man who has recently graduated from college. Traquair is intelligent, charismatic, and handsome, but disheartened by the limited opportunities available to him as an African-American male in 1882. When his father suggests that he accept a job as a valet for a visiting writer, Traquair is at first aghast and dispels the idea of being anyone's servant. When Traquair learns that the writer is Oscar Wilde, however, he has a change of heart. Already familiar with Wilde's work, the young man is certain he can learn a great deal from Wilde, and the two set off on a one-year trek across America. Traquair comes of age during the trip—he falls in love, loses his virginity, gains insight into his family, and realizes that establishing an identity will be difficult in a society rife with racial and sexual prejudice. He learns from Wilde, but Wilde also learns from him, and the two become close friends.

Oscar Wilde Discovers America is mostly fictional, except that Edwards allows the characters to follow Wilde's historical route. Edwards's inspiration for Traquair stemmed from two newspaper references to Oscar Wilde's African-American valet. "This young, handsome, well-educated black American male seems to be the ultimate outsider in the world of wealth, social pretense, cultural ambition and moral hypocrisy to which he is admitted in the company of his celebrated employer," observed William S. Doan in the Lambda Book Report. Doan also noted that "Edwards develops their relationship with subtlety and skill."

Oscar Wilde Discovers America was generally well received by critics, although a Publishers Weekly reviewer felt that the novel was "slowed by awkward prose with a false, old-timey stiffness." A Kirkus Reviewer dubbed the book "a marvelous story animated with just the right savvy, melodrama, wit, and fantasy." According to Library Journal critic Rebecca Stuhr, "This complex novel requires—and deserves—multiple readings to be understood and appreciated fully."

BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SOURCES:

PERIODICALS

Booklist, May 15, 1991, Donna Seaman, review of Ten Seconds, p. 1779; February 15, 1994, p. 1043; May 15, 1997, p. 1566; January 1, 2003, Margaret Flanagan, review of Oscar Wilde Discovers America, p. 844.

Book World, June 30, 1991, p. 10.

Choice, December, 1991, p. 591.

Essence, September, 1991, p. 50.

Kirkus Reviews, November 1, 2002, review of Oscar Wilde Discovers America, p. 1551.

Lambda Book Report, August-September, 2003, William S. Doan, "Wilde, Wilde, World," pp. 21-23.

Library Journal, May 1, 1991, p. 105; October 1, 1991, p. 55; April 1, 1997, p. 133; November 15, 2002, Rebecca Stuhr, review of Oscar Wilde Discovers America, pp. 99-101.

Los Angeles Times Book Review, June 23, 1991, p. 5; September 8, 1991, p. 10.

Multicultural Review, January, 1992, p. 45.

New York Times Book Review, August 11, 1991, Mason Buck, review of Ten Seconds, p. 20.

Publishers Weekly, May 3, 1991, p. 69; November 1, 1991, p. 21; January 20, 1992, p. 11; March 3, 1997, p. 67; November 11, 2002, review of Oscar Wilde Discovers America, p. 39.

San Francisco Review of Books, Volume 16, number 2, 1991, p. 43.*