Tee:

Thanks so much for your "heads up" on the "Feast of All Saints." I hope that Showtime will do it justice. The book has always been one of my favorite Anne Rice novels. Her novel was written in 1979 and I was always disappointed that it did not get the acclaim that it deserved.

Its preface mentions that there were 18,000 gens de couleur on the eve of the Civil War in New Orleans. Cane River presents the story of a much smaller population. Both underline the fate of a people who as Rice wrote, were in "the shadowy world between the white and the black."

In addition, both books are fiction. Cane River is a fictionalized biography based on true family history. The Feast of All Saints is fiction about the history of a people in the Lower South.

The sense of foreboding and guilt is a theme throughout Rice's book. It's easy to spot if you were raised as a Catholic. The title of the book, "The Feast of All Saints", is a Catholic "holy day of obligation" that's celebrated on November 1st.

Cane River is more about survival and triumph of a family.

I can't say which one is better. Not until I dust off my Rice book and re-read it again.

Both will inspire us to read and research more about our ancestors from the Lower South and the Caribbean.

Thank you again for your posting.

K Wyer Lane