Book Description
This digital document, covering the life and work of Patricia Eakins, is an entry from Contemporary Authors, a reference volume published by Thompson Gale. The length of the entry is 1622 words. The page length listed above is based on a typical 300-word page. Although the exact content of each entry from this volume can vary, typical entries include the following information:

• Place and date of birth and death (if deceased)
• Family members
• Education
• Professional associations and honors
• Employment
• Writings, including books and periodicals
• A description of the author's work
• References to further readings about the author

Book Description
The first-person narrative of a savant slave, Patricia Eakins's The Marvelous Adventures of Pierre Baptiste is one of the most imaginative novels in many years.From the opening pages, the reader is swept up by the linguistic fireworks of Eakins's autodidactic protagonist as he recounts "the tribulations of bondage in the sugar isles," his escape and how he was marooned, and his subsequent trials and adventures. Making expert use of historical convention and with an ear for rhetorical authenticity, Eakins has given us a compelling novel that bridges not only human cultures but the chasm between human and animal.

Here then is the account of the life and times of an African man of letters "whose ambitions were realized in strange and unexpected ways, yet who made peace with several gods and established a realm of equality & freedom & bounty in which no creature lives from another's labor." Pierre Baptiste emerges as an embodiment of all that is lost in a racist culture.

Author's web site:http://www.fabulara.com

Author interview with Amazon.com:http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/show-interview/e-p-akinsatricia/002-5686271-2394036

Frigate: The Transverse Review of Books edited by Patricia Eakins

Reading Group Study Questions

1. What do you make of the fact that a twentieth-century European-American female is writing in the person of an eighteenth-century African-American male? What implications are there for prose style and character creation?

2. Pierre considers himself a "philosophe," a "savant." He dreams of communing in France with the eminent natural historian, Buffon. Despite Pierre's creation of a "cyclopedic histoire" of New- and Old-World African lore, can an argument be made that Pierre's adoption of Enlightenment values is a betrayal of his fellow slaves?

3. What does Pierre Baptiste's narrative seem to be saying about erotic love and conjugal relationships?

4. The idea of the parasite is central to this novel. In what ways does the foregrounding of that concept affect your sense of the relationship between "culture" and "nature"? Between "nature" and "nurture"?

5. The scientific and spiritual discoveries of Pierre Baptiste have led him to believe that humans and animals are part of the same spectrum of being as gods. He also believes that animals are possessed of spiritual powers. Yet Pierre Baptiste is colonized by creatures whose birth robs him of powers of speech. Can this paradox be reconciled with Pierre's escape from slavery, which had previously relegated him to the status of chattel beast?

6. What is your understanding of Pierre's utopian project? Is it the same as the author's? How does it relate to any utopian projects you might have?

7. What does Pierre's treatment of Pamphile when he washes ashore on Pierre's island say about Pierre? Would you have treated Pamphile the same way? Why or why not?

8. What is the nature of the spiritual transformation Pierre sustains? In what ways are his metaphysics like or unlike your own?

9. Can you imagine a different ending for this book? How would the story be different if it had been told from the point-of-view of Pélérine Vérité? Of Rose? Of Pamphile?

10. If you had to be marooned on a desert isle with someone, would you be pleased if it turned out to be Pierre? If so, why? If not, why not? ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

A savory, exotic and most satisfying feast.
After reading The Hungry Girls, I was hungry for more of Patricia Eakins' works. The Marvelous Adventures of Pierre Baptiste was a savory, exotic and most satisfying feast. It is a great pleasure to meet a mind of suchimaginative brilliance, one which is able to cull from history, literature,science, myth, philosophy, religion and fantasy and create a tale ofexcitement, adventure, adversity, humor and humanity in which every line isa poetic gem. It brought to mind Rabelais, Borges, Heironymus Bosch butstands alone in its own originality. I loved this book and have recommendedit to everyone I know who loves great literature. Brava, Patricia Eakins. ... Read more

Product Description
The theme for this issue of Fiction International is Central American Writing. The writings and art in this issue come from Guatemala, El Salvador, Nicaragua, Costa Rica, Panama, Cuba and the United States. We have included the United States because it represents a grim constant - political and military intervention - in the variable histories of these Latino-Indian countries. ... Read more

Book Description
This massive biographical dictionary offers the most thorough study of a group of early American craftsmen published to date. It contains biographies of 296 silversmiths and jewelers who worked in Massachusetts prior to the American Revolution, records of more than 6000 examples of their work, and illustrations of 424 of their marks. It completes and amplifies research undertaken at Yale since the 1930s when John Marshall Phillips (1905 - 53), the leading scholar of American silver of his generation, acquired the research notes of Francis Hill Bigelow (1859 - 1933), a pioneer in the field.

There are brief biographical notes on 93 craftsmen in allied trades, including watchmakers, clockmakers, and engravers, and a section on individuals previously misidentified as Massachusetts silversmiths, as well as essays on silversmiths and their tools, Boston silversmithing and jewelrymaking trades, and other Massachusetts silversmiths. A glossary of terms relating to tools and craft techniques and 193 additional illustrations complete the book. ... Read more