Home of the Happy: A Murder on the Cajun Prairie by Jordan LaHaye Fontenot

 

Title:  Home of the Happy:  A Murder on the Cajun Prairie

Author:  Jordan LaHaye Fontenot

Narrated by:  Christine Lakin

Publisher: HarperAudio

Length: Approximately 13 hours and 10 minutes

Source: Audiobook review Copy from NetGalley and physical book review copy from #MorrowPartner and Mariner Books.  Thank-you!

 

Do you have any family stories that you think would make good books?  I think my great grandparents had interesting lives and they would make good stories. 

 

In 1983, banker Aubrey LaHaye was found dead, floating in a bayou.   He had been kidnapped ten days before.  A man was arrested, tried, and convicted of his murder – but was he guilty?  Aubrey’s great granddaughter investigates his murder as a cold case.  Will she find clues that were overlooked in the original investigation?  What will she learn about her own family?

 

Thoughts about this book:

·       Home of the Happy is a perfect book for lovers of true crime and true crime podcasts.

·       This book was great on audiobook with an interesting narrator.

·       Besides being a true crime book, it was also a memoir of the author’s family and community.   It was a personal story.

·       I learned a lot about the Cajun culture.  The book gave the history of the Acadian Cajuns and included discussion of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow’s poem, Evangeline:  A Tale of Acadie. 

·       The book went through the impact of the murder on the entire LaHaye family through the years and how it changed them.

·       It also detailed the trial of John Brady Balfa.  Some people still think he is innocent.  It really made me ponder the justice system.  It’s up to the victim’s family to keep going to the parole hearings to keep someone in jail.  But what if they are innocent?  The author grapples with this and whether her family has kept an innocent man in jail.  Luckily, she has resolution by the end to feel like they did keep the right man in jail.

·       The physical copy of the book has a great insert of pictures related to the family and the crime.

Overall, Home of the Happy:  A Murder on the Cajun Prairie by Jordan LaHaye Fontenot was an interesting true crime book that was unique with the intersection of a memoir of a family, people, and place in time.