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Out of the Easy


Out of the Easy is set in 1950s French Quarter, New Orleans.  The protagonist, like the city she inhabits, has her own dark specters whose source and spring is her prostitute mother.  Wanting to flee this mire and the stigma it carries, Josie devises a plan to get out.  Unfortunately, the sins of the mother are visited upon the daughter in the form a mob entanglement that threatens all that Josie values.  Yet, with the help of her friends, Josie emerges triumphant and acts upon the wisdom and courage that she’s gleaned from literary classics, taking this new understanding with her as she heads East.  Sepetys’ sophomore novel has not only a compelling plot, but also a narrative voice that rings true as the protagonist is forced to exist in a world that repulses her – code-switching between the seediness of a clandestine economy of favors and a burgeoning self-refinement.  In coming of age, Josie matures morally, psychologically, and socially matures as the result of her extraordinary experience; she must learn to reconcile her desperation to escape with her stalwart loyalty to those who have always sheltered her from her mother’s storm.  This novel will appeal to readers who enjoy realistic fiction’s tendency to recognize and navigate the pluralities of life as well as those language lovers who revel in the colorful musicality of southernisms à la Eudora Welty, Truman Capote, and Tennessee Williams.

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