From Meaning to Desire

About the Book

The path From Meaning to Desire draws its characters through nine stories, eight set in 1960, along the Red River, from Shreveport to Natchitoches in western Louisiana, to the last in South Vietnam in 1967. The book opens on Lillian Stallings. Shy, missing her deceased father, and at 38 adjusting to premature grandparenthood, she finds her life dismayingly similar to her mother's -- unfulfilled, unengaged, and short on meaning. When she and her husband are traveling to their first visit to see their grandchild, Lillian is traumatized by Lou, the book's other protagonist, who owns a café and motel near Shreveport. Following the trauma, the visit to the daughter's home goes even worse than feared: Lillian's distress overflows and she flees, fearing that her husband Gerald and their daughter will have her committed to a mental institution. Louis Fontinot, carnival prize fighter, speakeasy bouncer, World War I veteran, and sometimes wrestler of alligators, is also a closet devourer of high quality fiction, a self-identified "counterfeit" Cajun, and the benevolent patriarch of an extended family of siblings, their families, and the children of his cook and her partner. Especially close are his sister, Marie Lynn -- a librarian who shares Lou's love of literature -- and her son, Marlow, in whom Lou finds a kind of alter ego. Plot and characters emerge from the risks, fears, passions, and complexities of local culture, segregation, civil rights, the Klan, family dynamics, and the emerging love story of Lou and Lillian. The ninth story is a counter spin on the first eight.

About the Author

Douglas Uzzell was born in Houston, Texas. He received the Bachelor's Degree and the Master's Degree, with a concentration in creative writing from the University of Houston, and taught English and creative writing at Tarleton State University in Stephenville, Texas. Subsequently, he received the PhD in Cultural Anthropology from the University of Texas at Austin, and completed post-doctoral studies in psychotherapy at the University of South Florida. He has conducted ethnographic research in Mexico, Peru and the United States and taught anthropology courses at Rice University, Southern Methodist University, The University of Texas at Dallas, and The University of South Florida. A veteran of the 82nd Airborne Division, he served with the US Central Intelligence Agency in South Vietnam in 1966 and 1967. He now practices Psychotherapy in Tampa, Florida, where he lives with his wife, Linda Whiteford.