Side Effects: A New Orleans Love Story

N.O. Drugstore is located at the improbable intersection of South Claiborne Avenue and South Carrollton Avenue in New Orleans. Its idiosyncratic clientele draws as much from mostly poor-black Pigeontown as it does from the mostly rich-white University section. And no one knows this better than the three people who man the pharmacy on even days of the month. As different in style and temperament as their customers, Luciana Jambon, Lennon Israel, and Vendetta Greene are the protagonists of this story. Told in third person from their alternating points of view, Side Effects plays out their respective family feuds, usually somewhere between the Seasonal Specials and the Depends aisles. Corralled as they are with one another twelve hours a day, romance and splendid friendship blossom among Luciana, Lennon, and Vendetta, because it’s really only a low counter that separates them from everyone else.