Customer Reviews

My New Orleans: Ballads to the Big Easy by Her Sons, Daughters, and Lovers

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My home town is a little over a century old. A child by New Orleans standards. I hope in a few centuries the artists of my city will write tributes such as this for my home.
This is not a history or an organized cultural survey. It is celebration of the Big Easy's culture. It illustrates that New Orleans is substantially different from the rest of the United States. The people, food and art differs. Not like L.A. differs from Seattle but like Egypt differs from London.
I bought the book because Poppy Z. Brite and Christopher Rice were in the same book. I went on to enjoy all of the essays. I hope you do as well.
Bless You!

MY NEW ORLEANS is a compilation of essays and a few poems about the Big Easy. Most were written post Katrina. The lead poem, "Nasty Water" by James Nolan, however, first published in 1997, is hauntingly prophetic. The authors, ranging from Pulitzer Prize winner Robert Olen Butler to restaurant owners Leah Chase and Ella Brennan, are united in their love for the city. And therein rests the beauty of this book. There are no questions or answers, no pointed fingers, no predictions or solutions. Here are multiple points of view by natives and lovers of a city that is different, yet they point in the same direction - love of place, and a worry. Is Katrina a milestone or an epitaph?

Of all the books written after Katrina, this one is the best. The contributors who wrote the several articles for this book have several ways of remembering New Orleans, but there is one common denominator: New Orleans was once a beautiful and pleasant city - and should become so again. Two special personal items: Rosemary James describes her arrival in New Orleans by plane, and it reminded my of my own first arrival in New Orleans August 29, 1965. I also enjoyed reading Mary Helen Lagasse's article which describes her childhood in the Irish channel. Mary Helen and I are friends since my second stay at Tulane, 1971-1976. Of course, I read the other articles as well, and they all are designed to describe New Orleans as it was before the destruction, and what it should become again.

This book is full of great stories from some of New Orleans' best writers. A must-have for anyone interested in contemporary Louisiana literature.