Author Description

Killing John Kanton is a story in which two men, both children of the 1950's, by chance meet on a Mississippi Gulf coast, deserted pier about a year after the Katrina catastrophe. Both are looking for resolution. Through a night of conversation they explore the subject matter of their lives as well as a few bottles of booze.One of the men, affectionately known only as the white guy, is what New Orleanians, also affectionately, refer to as a transplant. A transplant in New Orleans is a person who regards themselves as a New Orleanian but was not born or raised anywhere near it. They generally feel fortunate to have found New Orleans in their path, and they regard it as an oasis in what they call, when they are feeling particularly smug, the desert of American culture. In personal crisis "yet again," the white guy finds himself in the throws of "another" drunken splurge and, in "yet another" aimless, random search. Somewhere along the Gulf of Mexico, he meets up with Leroy Fuller McKinna.Leroy is a native, born-and-raised New Orleanian who came up in the notorious poverty and crime found in what was and is called Central City. The 1950 and 1960 New Orleans experienced a significant make-over as the Civil Rights Movement succeeded in making racism out of vogue and impolite. Leroy is a black man, a child of his culture, and fully, in speech and manner, New Orleans. The white guy, as Leroy's transcriber, has tempered (but not eliminated) Leroy's regional-ness to facilitate what he hopes will be the average reader's literary palate. We experience that night and learn how Leroy, a good man, came to murder John Kanton, another good man.