Plenty Enough Suck to Go Around (Paperback)

~ (Author)

Editorial Reviews

Review

Wagner's is a distinctive and funny voice, with that tone of the committed (and at times should be committed) New Orleanian.

The title comes, as if you can't guess, from those infuriating stories of comparative loss post-Katrina, when those who had lost everything were subjected to the litanies of minor inconvenience by the more fortunate. "Everyone's loss is big to them," Wagner kept telling herself. And so it was. "I was not interested in sifting and weighing suck on a bunch of tiny scales," she continued. "Suck was too hard to quantify. There was plenty enough suck to go around. Sitting around measuring it wasn't going to fix anything."

What makes this story uniquely memorable is Wagner's wise and wisecracking voice, the broken heart beneath the bravado. Working on a survey of gutted/non-gutted buildings, she writes, "By the time you finished hearing people's problems, you wished you were a professional busybody or the mayor or the governor or a city inspector or anyone who could and would actually do something." And who hasn't had that feeling, way back then or as recently as yesterday?

Finally, Wagner and her boyfriend end up with "the dogs, sanity and each other." And we end up with this fine book, with its searing honesty, its gallows humor and its survivor spirit. ----The Times-Picayune

Product Description

"Print and public-radio journalist Wagner describes rebuilding after Hurricane Katrina...Despite Kafkaesque experiences with the infamous bureaucratic mess that threatened to undo New Orleans once and for all, the couple held on to their optimism for the city and their little piece of it. Wagner captures the nostalgia, the heartbreak and the friendships spawned in Katrina's turbulent aftermath with raw emotional honesty free of sentimentality. Unflinching, humorous and heartfelt."--Kirkus Reviews

The cliché "New Orleans gets into people's blood" happens to be very true just not always convenient. For Cheryl Wagner, along with her indie-band boyfriend, a few eccentric pals, and two aging basset hounds, abandoning the city she loved wasn't an option.

This is the story of Cheryl's disturbing surprise view from her front porch after she moved back home to find everything she treasured in shambles...and her determined, absurd, and darkly funny three-year journey of trying to piece it all back together.

In the same heartfelt and hilarious voice that has drawn thousands of listeners to her broadcasts on Public Radio International's This American Life, Wagner shares her unique yet universal story of rebuilding a life after it's been flooded, dried, and died...

"Dark, funny, generous and jarring--occasionally tragic but never sentimental." --Paul Tough, author of Whatever It Takes: Geoffrey Canada's Quest to Change Harlem and America

"A wonderful, touching, thoughtful, crazy, loving book." --Frederick Barthelme, author of Waveland and eleven other works of fiction including Elroy Nights, a finalist for the PEN/Faulkner Award and a New York Times Notable Book

" A wild, blood and guts lived-to-tell-all memoir." --Porochista Khakpour, author of Sons and Other Flammable Objects

"The book would be heartbreaking if it weren't so funny, so clear-eyed, and so beautifully fierce." --James Whorton Jr., author of Frankland

"I love it." -- Pete Jordan, author of Dishwasher: One Man's Quest to Wash Dishes in Fifty States

"Imagine if Jack Kerouac had lived through the flood and wrote you a long, personal letter from the wreckage." --Jonathan Goldstein, author of Ladies and Gentlemen, The Bible! and Host of CBC's and PRI's radio show WireTap

"Wagner writes with honesty and humor." --Annie Choi, author of Happy Birthday or Whatever

"A work of art, unsparing of everything, including itself." --Jack Pendarvis, author of Awesome

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Product Details

• Paperback: 224 pages
• Publisher: Citadel Press (May 1, 2009)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0806531037
• ISBN-13: 978-0806531038
• Product Dimensions: 8.2 x 5.5 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 8 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (6 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #237,088 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

6 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars I'm Glad Someone Wrote This, May 4, 2009

By	S. Hebert (New Orleans, LA) - See all my reviews

After reading the great review in the Times Picayune here I still wasn't sure that I wanted to read this book because I thought it was going to be depressing. But it was hilarious. I laughed out loud. In honesty, I also got teary at points. I think it's a good book for women who live with their boyfriends who wonder what it would be like if the shXX hit the fan!

4 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Heartwrenching, Hopeful and Funny, May 4, 2009

By	B. Clark (Hattiesburg, MS) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

Reading Cheryl Wagner's heart wrenching and darkly humorous account of recovery-life in post-Katrina New Orleans feels like receiving a muddy shoebox full of candid snapshots in the mail, each with a handwritten note scrawled onto the back detailing the fascinating characters and events that began to repopulate the streets around the house that she and her boyfriend fought desperately to reclaim.

Her writing is personal and reflective as well as charitable and compassionate. Reading this story gave me a glimpse into the heart of New Orleans and why so many fought to revive it and exactly how difficult of a task that has been.

An excellent book.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A Stunning Memoir of Louisiana Post-Katrina, September 6, 2009

By	J. Wactor (Tucson, AZ) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

"Save yourself some grief. S*** goes wrong all day. Every day. For over a year. Everything is booby-trapped. That's how it is. We're used to ten things going wrong in a row. You're on number one."

Wagner has an important story to tell. In the aftermath of Katrina, instead of leaving the tragedy and loss, instead of purifying her life of the decay and dissolution that followed, she stays--to replace what was lost, to fix what was broken, to mend what was torn. The memoir of the two years that followed is tragic and heartrending, but necessary for people--like me--who witnessed with distant austerity on the news one more natural disaster plaguing the American coast.

From the fires of Wagner's firsthand accounting of disaster comes the sprouting of new ferns, but not without its travails and traumas. Her memoir evokes the bitter frustration of swimming against the currents of fear, doubt, and denial. With sweat and blood, Wagner and her boyfriend slowly rebuild not only a battered house, but a battered life to restore a New Orleans aura that--though beaten--could not broken. By the faith and perseverance of those not unlike herself--who refused to give up on their little slice of home in a place where the iced coffee is always sweet and crawfish is always on the menu--New Orleans slowly recovers its glory, prestige, and notorious nature as the most fascinating city of cultural diversity in the South.