La Concon Research Unearths New Data

Back in September, we wrote of a potential breakthrough in our long and almost completely fictional effort to reconstruct a complete picture of the fascinating, legendary, and likewise fictional Storyville courtesan La Conçon. And there’s nothing like a real peek into history, if that’s at all possible.

Well, good news! We’ve actually spoken to three of her blood descendants, all of which turned out to be very nice and helpful and provided us with almost nothing that we didn’t already know (although one of her great-great-grandsons, a moderately affluent banker from Metairie, did give us some great tips on refinancing). However, they did give us one or two almost accidental leads to track down, and that will be our next step.

To answer a few questions: no, there is no ‘official’ La Conçon Group, neither any existing antiquarian or historical society nor any online group of Facebook page or anything like that. Perhaps 2011 is the year that we’ll move into the 21st Century (or at least the last decade of the 20th, if all else fails).

Also, there is currently no La Conçon Tour of the French Quarter. It’s not because we made it all up (that doesn’t stop the ghost, vampire, or even many of the voodoo tours) it’s just that we don’t currently live in New Orleans or the vicinity. We wish!

And finally, we know that the Internet way is to make this look as real as possible, so our admission that it’s slightly-satirical historical fiction is the last thing we should do. Well, if you’re really concerned about such things, you can call it, and us, a work of ‘metafiction’. After all, all the world’s a stage…