Rutherford is the main character of the novel, the writer of each of the journal entries through which the story is told. At the beginning of the novel, he is a young, newly freed slave who is taken in by the sensuality of New Orleans, his new home. Born with a natural ability to steal, he makes this his livelihood when finding honest work proves difficult. Rutherford adopts a wild lifestyle, going on alcohol binges and sleeping with loose women. When he meets Isadora, a proper schoolteacher, his attraction to her is undeniable. Rutherford refuses to abandon his wild ways and Isadora, growing tired of this, brings up the subject of marriage. She tells Rutherford that what he needs is a woman to bring him down to earth, like her mother did for her.....
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