An Organized Panic

AN ORGANIZED PANIC sets sister against brother, born secular humanist against later-in-life evangelical Christian. The sibling squabble underscores a serious struggle, certainly, but this is another tale told in the darkly humorous Friedmann voice--and set in the New Orleans only a native would know. The manuscript took second place in the Faulkner-Wisdom competition in late 2012.

Ronald Price runs a lucrative business called JesusCleanup. Ronald discovered early on that his New Orleans-based crime-scene cleaning operation made a lot more money after one man on a cleaning crew prayed over a murder site. So his teams began sanctifying scenes as they cleaned them. He has become an ordained minister, and in turn he ordains his crews. Narrator Cesca Price is baffled. She is his older sister, and they grew up in a thoroughly secular household. When other children were learning the facts of life, their mother was sitting them down to tell them in no uncertain terms that "dead is dead." The reader knows little about their father. Except that the siblings saw him differently. Ronald often was hurt by him, and eventually the reader learns that when he died he left Ronald nothing from millions. When Cesca and her mother Trisha have Thanksgiving dinner at Ronald's house, Cesca's desire to make it a good day for her mother collides with her skepticism. The meal is marked by praises to Jesus and recipes loaded with sodium from canned soups--even though Ronald and his wife know Trisha has high blood pressure. Bombarded by family stresses and salt and caffeine, Trisha has a stroke, and Cesca embarks on struggles with her brother. With her sister-in-law she is a little confused: now Elizabeth, the sister-in-law once was her close friend Tizzy. Cesca feels she has lost her to Ronald, but she's not a hundred percent sure. Cesca is a painter of national repute, and in the coming weeks she has much to juggle: responsibility for her mother, a coming show at the Getty, an interview with PBS host Tevor Souriante --plus a nascent friendship with her mother's doctor Michael Rosenthal. By Christmas a certain order has come into her life. Her mother is improving, Michael is getting romantic, daughter Klea is in from college, and Ronald's family is coming to dinner and compromising on Cesca's eating principles. Cesca is a vegan, but will serve fish--and a low-sodium meal. Nevertheless, Ronald accuses her of what he calls adultery, a loud fight starts, and Trisha has another, final stroke. When the time comes for Trisha to come off life support, Ronald's sudden hastiness to give the go-ahead makes Cesca wonder for quite a while. But she is too busy as executrix of the estate to deal with it, because Ronald wants to use his half of the estate to buy a huge empty church to start a ministry. Cesca thinks that either Ronald is a charlatan, which means he is a crook but at least a man of reason--or he is a good Christian but no longer the man of reason who grew up with her. Either way, she says no. So Ronald sues her--unsuccessfully--to remove her as executrix. Two days later she does her interview with Tevor Souriante, still fuming about her brother, not knowing the camera is rolling when she says what she thinks of Ronald. Cesca becomes more and more romantically involved with Michael, who shares artistic talent with her but also is protective of her. When Ronald threatens to kill her, she doesn't take it seriously, but Michael does. Cesca finally realizes that Ronald prizes money above all else. In the end, Ronald and Cesca will have to face each other down, and each will have to try to prove the other is not above board. Has Cesca libeled Ronald and ruined his livelihood and thus owes him millions? Or is Cesca right, that he dupes innocent people, and it's okay to make it public? That resolved, what will the Price family be without Trisha?