AN EXCERPT FROM THE BOOK
Chapter 2: "You’ll have to excuse the governor. He’s taking medication."
In early 1970, the Lotus Club in Monroe was Louisiana’s second-oldest social organization, which made it the place to be seen in the northeastern corner of the state. For the previous five decades, the club’s Tiffany stained-glass and ornate wood paneling provided a place — the ninth floor of the Ouachita National Bank building — for mixing fellowship, business, and politics. On a frosty January morning of that year, Congressman Edwin W. Edwards of Crowley sat down with a freshman state representative from Monroe in the club’s dining hall. Invitations to such meetings with Edwards were becoming commonplace. For Edwards, the Lotus Club was yet another setting for yet another conversation about “Louisiana’s future.”
Edwards, at age 43, was literally and figuratively flying high by the time the New Year and new decade came into focus. He was a licensed pilot and spent much of the first quarter of 1970 at a cruising altitude, flying from one town to the next while boosting...