Carolyn Long's latest work, like her earlier Spiritual Merchants, is an fascinating piece of historical detective work. Sifting through the legends that surround Marie Laveau--and briefly Voodoo in general--she has produced a readable, highly-accurate biography. Those who are hoping to find titillating accounts of midnight Voodoo orgies within its pages will be disappointed. Instead, what readers will discover are the facts behind a woman who has been alternately vilified and lionized by the American public. Voudou Priestess demystifies Laveau and gives future scholars as well as general readers a firm foundation upon which to base their understandings of Voudou and its ministers.

I appreciate the fact that there is a lot of legend and reality to sort through when trying to write an academic book about Marie Laveau. Unfortunately, once Long was done sorting through the legend and the reality, there doesn't appear to have been a lot to work with in terms of unraveling the legend/myth of Marie Laveau. The book is largely speculation on who Marie Laveau may have been, what she may have done, and questions if she really did it or not.

During the course of the book, while attempting to construct a coherent picture of the reality of Marie Laveau, Long interjects elements of prior works on Marie Laveau that make certain claims, such as Zora Neale Hurston's work on "hoodoo" and Jewell Rhodes' "Voodoo Dreams" in order to debunk the mythology that they promote. This is admirable and necessary in the work of a true historian, but unfortunately they're awkwardly placed and without prior knowledge of the content of either of these books, it is difficult for the reader to appreciate Long's argument.

Further to the literary criticism, the book spends an inordinate amount of time focusing on the social dynamic of 19th century New Orleans which is very interesting and necessary to a discussion of Marie Laveau and the voodoo culture, but not necessarily to the extent that it was utilized in this work.

The book was interesting for the nuggets of information on Marie Laveau that do emerge from Long's work, but it doesn't represent any substantial scholarship. Sometimes there just isn't enough information to write a coherent, cohesive work on a subject. In that case, it's best to reduce it to an article or a monograph as opposed to padding the work to such an extent that the actual claimed subject of the work takes up a minimal part of the whole body of work.