New Orleans frames stories from the heart

05:13 PM CDT on Friday, September 5, 2003

By JOY DICKINSON / Special Contributor to The Dallas Morning News

After getting her start as a trendsetter in the black romance genre, Dallas author Francis Ray has been hovering near the conventional best-seller lists for way too long, with more than a dozen novels and several anthology contributions to her credit.

The glowing Somebody's Knocking at My Door, featuring characters introduced in Ms. Ray's popular The Turning Point, may be the book that launches her from Buppieville into mainstream America. Ms. Ray's talent is such that she, like Alice Walker and Toni Morrison, should see her works reach far beyond her loyal black audience. Her stories transcend race in their flawless grasp of the havoc wrought by the peculiarities of human nature.

This powerful novel focuses primarily on Rafe Crawford and Kristen Wakefield, secondary characters in The Turning Point. As they meet again in Kristen's new hometown of New Orleans, Kristen is struggling with finding her identity and career after a youth of privilege and wealth. Rafe has far darker demons to conquer, including horrific child abuse at the hands of his father.

When Kristen loses her dream job as an art historian, Rafe comes to the rescue, sort of, and the two tentatively maneuver their way through the minefield of burgeoning friendship and possible romance.

Interwoven with their story is that of Angelique Fleming, Kristen's next-door neighbor, a former foster kid who's now working in "gentlemen's clubs" to pay for college and getting insight into New Orleans' most powerful men along the way. We also meet Claudette Laurent, a wealthy businesswoman demoralized by a marriage that's more of a business deal than love match.

Ms. Ray's gifts for realistic dialogue and building sexual suspense (refreshingly, without resorting to explicit sex scenes) glisten in Somebody's Knocking at My Door. She also excels at weaving several threads of narrative into a cohesive whole, making her subsidiary characters as compelling as the major players.

New Orleans becomes a character in this book, with Ms. Ray nimbly navigating both ends of Big Easy society, high and low. Stripper Angelique works in the smelly underside of the city yet has more integrity than virtually all of her customers. Claudette's husband, Maurice, on the other hand, can afford dinner at Brennan's every night but thoroughly personifies the word "sleaze."

Ms. Ray, a graduate of Texas Woman's University, deserves the attention and accolades this book is sure to bring her. Black romance will be sorry to lose her, but the mainstream audience should cheer.

Free-lance journalist and author Joy Dickinson lives in Corrales, N.M.