NEW ORLEANS (press release) – The Garden District Book Shop is thrilled to announce that bestselling author Julia Malye will be at the shop March 19 to celebrate her recent book “Pelican Girls.”
Notably, Malye wrote this novel both in French and in English. It was first published in France this January, under the title “La Louisiane” (éditions Stock) where it’s been met with high critical and public acclaim, and became an overnight bestseller and a literary sensation.
Inspired by a true story, Malye’s stunning US literary debut captures the never-before-told journey of the Baleine Brides: a ship full of young women plucked from a Paris asylum and sent to marry settlers in North America’s rough Louisiana Territory. At once a gorgeously written work of startling depth and emotion and a gripping drama marrying high-seas adventure with pioneer grit, “Pelican Girls” is a powerful, thought-provoking novel about female friendship and desire and the daunting compromises women are forced to make to survive.
The evening will kick off at 6 p.m. and Malye will sit down to discuss her research and book with author and New Orleans local M.O. Walsh. Afterwards, the two will open the floor for a brief Q & A before Malye personalizes copies of her book.
Entry to the event is free and open to the public but the shop encourages interested parties to RSVP to ensure entry and reserve a copy of the book on Eventbrite as space is limited. Additional copies will be available to purchase.
Pelican Girls
Paris, 1720. La Salpêtrière hospital is in crisis: too many occupants, not enough beds. Halfway across the world, France’s colony in the wilds of North America has space to spare and needs families to fill it. So the director of the hospital rounds up nearly a hundred female “volunteers” of childbearing age—orphans, prisoners, and mental patients—to be shipped to New Orleans.
Among this group are three unlikely friends: a sharp-tongued twelve-year old orphan, a mute ‘madwoman,’ and an accused abortionist. Charlotte, Pétronille, and Geneviève, along with the dozens of other women aboard La Baleine, have no knowledge of what lies ahead and no control over their futures. Strangers brought together by fate, these brave and fierce young women will face extraordinary adversity—pirates, slavedrivers, sickness, war—but also the private trauma of heartbreak and unrequited love, children born and lost, cruelty and unexpected pleasure, and a friendship forged in fire that will sustain through the years.
