Description

A life .... a Caribbean life ... a life of a distinct Franco-Caribbean identity against the backdrop of the all-consuming French Revolution ... a life patchily documented in history ... a life seen through the eyes of the mistress, the wife .... a life of changing shape, of the shape-changer ... a life of political intrigue, of brutal slaughter, of exploration and love ... a life of a Caribbean adventurer, Philippe Rose Roume de St. Laurent. In this book, Besson continues his exploration of the French presence in the Caribbean in the 18th and early 19th century and of the formation of a Creole identity in these islands at a time when Atlas truly shrugged in terms of European history, a quest that he began with his previous books "The Voice in the Govi", "The Cult of the Will" and "From the Gates of Aksum". Partly historical novel, partly a fictional tale, "Roume ... a Memoir" takes the reader into the confidence of Marianne, or Soubise as she becomes, and allows glimpses at Roume de St. Laurent's life through her diaries. Roume ... a Memoir is really the memoir of his lover and later wife, and bursts with the excitement of two adventurers sailing through life together, criss-crossing the Atlantic as the winds of revolutionary change blew them, trying to hold on to each other, to a dream of the future, or just for dear life itself.