Jordan LaHaye Fontenot’s Home of the Happy is an evocative, genre-blending work that braids personal memoir with investigative journalism and regional history. The story of her great-grandfather’s 1983 murder—a crime that once galvanized a Louisiana parish—is not just told, but deeply felt. With poetic prose and journalistic rigor, Fontenot pulls readers into the humid backroads of Evangeline Parish, where the past clings like moss and questions never really die.
This isn’t just a true crime story. It’s an excavation of memory, identity, and regional trauma, passed down like heirlooms in a Cajun family that tried to forget too much. In echoing the works of Maggie Nelson (The Red Parts) and Emma Copley Eisenberg (The Third Rainbow Girl), Fontenot carves out a literary space that honors both the genre’s demands and her own family’s silences.
The Crime That Echoed Across Generations
In January 1983, seventy-year-old banker Aubrey LaHaye—Fontenot’s great-grandfather—was kidnapped from his home in the predawn hours. Ten days later, his body surfaced in the Bayou Nezpique. His murder triggered the largest manhunt in Evangeline Parish history and left behind more questions than answers. One man, John Brady Balfa, was convicted and remains in prison to this day. But nearly four decades later, suspicions still linger: Was Balfa truly the killer, or did small-town justice move too fast in its need for resolution?
Fontenot revisits the events with both emotional closeness and objective distance, bringing fresh eyes to a case that remains unsatisfactorily resolved. Her inquiry reveals more than just inconsistencies in Balfa’s conviction—it reveals the ways trauma calcifies in families and communities, sometimes shaping their very sense of identity.
Structure and Style: A Braided Narrative of Crime, Family, and Folklore
The book is organized into five parts: The Murder, The Aftermath, The Trial, The Mystery, and The Question of Relief. These sections unfold with the pacing of a thriller but the depth of a personal essay. Fontenot uses a dual narrative technique—oscillating between the crime’s timeline and her own modern-day investigation. This structure helps maintain tension while also offering readers space to reflect.
Her prose is lyrical yet precise. She brings the Louisiana landscape to life with sensory richness—rain-soaked fields, the sag of cypress trees, the warmth of cornbread at a kitchen table. But she also dissects legal documents, witness statements, and archival evidence with the clarity of a seasoned reporter. The tension between these modes is what gives Home of the Happy its power: it’s as much about feeling as it is about fact.
Highlights of the Writing Style
- Poetic Descriptions: Nature and place are not mere backdrops but living entities—“The Bayou Nezpique, draining, cold, gray, heavy as grief.”
- Oral History Resonance: The storytelling mirrors the way Southern families pass down stories—by whisper, myth, and intuition.
- Unflinching Honesty: Fontenot doesn’t flinch from implicating her own family in the silences that protected the truth.
Themes: Memory, Injustice, and the Cajun Legacy
What makes Home of the Happy more than a standard true crime tale is its rich thematic palette:
1. Intergenerational Silence and Memory
Fontenot explores the way trauma becomes embedded in a family’s cultural DNA. Her childhood understanding of her great-grandfather’s murder was steeped in myth. Only later does she learn how many facts had been edited out—or never spoken.
2. Questioning Justice
Was the right man convicted? As Fontenot interviews townspeople and reads trial transcripts, the narrative questions how race, class, and reputation shape legal outcomes in rural America. Some witnesses still believe Balfa was innocent, and the evidence, at best, feels circumstantial.
3. Cajun Identity and Historical Erasure
Fontenot contextualizes her family’s story within the broader history of the Acadian exile and the formation of Cajun culture. Her poetic digressions into Louisiana’s colonial past and cultural resilience offer a sense of rootedness that elevates the book beyond memoir or mystery.
4. Womanhood and Power
From her MawMaw Emily’s quiet courage during the kidnapping to Fontenot’s own journalistic tenacity, the women in this book carry much of its emotional and narrative weight.
Character Studies: The Living and the Dead
Though Aubrey LaHaye is murdered within the first few pages, his presence haunts the entire book. Fontenot rebuilds him from interviews, court documents, and family lore. He emerges as both a community pillar and a man who, like so many patriarchs, was mythologized posthumously.
MawMaw Emily is unforgettable—dignified even as she’s bound by rope during the home invasion. Her vivid, contradictory memories speak to the complexity of trauma. Fontenot’s father, Marcel, provides a bridge between past and present, and his reflections lend the book a philosophical depth that resists easy answers.
John Brady Balfa, meanwhile, is less a character than a cipher. Fontenot’s balanced portrayal leaves readers suspended between sympathy and suspicion. Was he a scapegoat? A troubled youth caught in the wrong narrative? Or something more sinister?
Praise: What Works Exceptionally Well
- Deep Personal Investment: Fontenot’s proximity to the crime gives her narrative unique emotional authority.
- Cultural Commentary: Her reflections on Cajun identity are as compelling as the crime story itself.
- Narrative Voice: The first-person perspective is intimate without being self-indulgent.
- Historical Insight: Fontenot deftly integrates local history and folklore to paint a fuller picture of a people and place.
Critique: Where It Falters
- Narrative Diffusion: At times, the poetic detours into Cajun history, though beautiful, slow the momentum of the crime investigation.
- Over-Reliance on Memory: Fontenot acknowledges this herself—the reconstructed dialogue and imagined scenes, while transparently presented as such, may blur lines for some readers seeking documentary precision.
- Legal Complexity Underexplored: The court proceedings, while covered, could benefit from a deeper breakdown of the evidence (or lack thereof) against Balfa. A sharper legal analysis might have lent more gravity to the question of wrongful conviction.
Comparison with Similar Books
If you appreciated:
- The Red Parts by Maggie Nelson — for its lyrical deconstruction of family and violence,
- The Third Rainbow Girl by Emma Copley Eisenberg — for its blend of crime and cultural history,
- Say Nothing by Patrick Radden Keefe — for its haunting blend of personal and political truths,
…then Home of the Happy should be on your list. Fontenot’s voice is quieter, more rooted in familial tenderness, but no less exacting in her pursuit of truth.
About the Author
This is Jordan LaHaye Fontenot’s debut book, and it reads like the work of someone who’s lived with a story long enough to respect its gravity. A writer and cultural critic from Louisiana, Fontenot brings a rare mix of insider perspective and outsider reflection. Her training in journalism and literature, combined with her inherited proximity to the events, grants her both authority and sensitivity.
If this is her first, it promises a luminous future in narrative nonfiction.
Final Verdict
Home of the Happy is a beautifully haunted exploration of memory, justice, and home. More than a whodunit, it’s a “why-do-we-remember-the-way-we-do” story, interwoven with Southern folklore and familial ache. Fontenot doesn’t promise closure—what she offers is a reckoning.
- Emotional depth, lyrical writing, important questions
- Docked a star for pacing issues and minor gaps in legal clarity
Should You Read It?
Absolutely—especially if you’re drawn to:
- True crime with a personal angle
- Southern Gothic atmospheres
- Family sagas with historical depth
- Stories that resist neat conclusions
