New Orleans, Mon Amour: Twenty Years of Writings from the City (Paperback)

~ (Author)
Key Phrases: French Quarter, Mardi Gras, New York (more...)

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

In this lovely collection of very short essays (many two pages long), gravelly voiced NPR commentator Codrescu sketches finely honed portraits of a fabled city and its equally fabled inhabitants. The author, who has called the Big Easy home for two decades, shows how, like some gigantic bohemian magnet, New Orleans attracts some of the world's most talented, self-indulgent freaks. Codrescu finds himself quite at home there. He expertly weaves pages of New Orleans history through his stories of personal discovery and debauchery. The last few essays, written post-Katrina, radiate simultaneous anger and clarity. Full of pride and defensiveness, Codrescu closes the collection ruminating about rebuilding the city and his longing to return to its rhythms and eccentricities. Despite Codrescu's frustrations, this collection is, in the end, gentle and sweet. Readers can't help coming away from reading it without an abiding hope in the ability of ordinary people, under the worst circumstances, rising to whatever challenges they face. (Jan. 6)
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From Booklist

The author is a popular NPR commentator who, although Romanian born, has been a New Orleans resident since the early 1980s. The release of this collection of essays about the city that occupies his heart could not be timelier; in fact, he has included a half-dozen pieces about its post-Katrina state. Two-page commentaries frequently give way to longer ruminations, but whether within a brief or long space, his remembrances and testimonies about the Big Easy, from the point when he arrived to the present day, share heartfelt moments and characters and conditions that are only discoverable in this most exotic of American cities. Crime is ever present, he admits, but he is equally adamant about how lovable a city it is, a place where many people call the phone numbers of the dead and fully expect the deceased to answer. Yes, living with alligators is, as he says, "an acquired taste," but on the other hand, St. Charles Avenue "has to be the most charming boulevard in the world." A place of uniqueness in all forms. Brad Hooper
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

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Product Details

• Paperback: 288 pages
• Publisher: Algonquin Books (January 31, 2006)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1565125053
• ISBN-13: 978-1565125056
• Product Dimensions: 7.8 x 5 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 11.2 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: #250,911 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

17 of 17 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars What a lovely tribute!, October 25, 2006

By	Kathleen Valentine "Passionate Writer, Passio... (Gloucester, Massachusetts) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

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Sometimes it takes someone from elsewhere to really appreciate a place. I have long been a fan of Andrei Codrescu's NPR commentaries and knew that he lived in New Orleans so when I saw this book I knew it would be good. It is. Codrescu, like so many of us who choose our new "hometown" loves everything about New Orleans and sees it with both loving and honest eyes. Like all great lovers he loves the flaws as much as he loves the beauties.

He writes about his years on carnival krews, about hours spent prowling the French Quarter, about Marie Laveau the legendary voodoo queen and other New Orleans characters, about food and the cemeteries where people meet as if they were parks. He writes about not being able to get out of his hammock --- all with wry humor, grace, and appreciation. And he writes with anger about Katrina and its aftermath.

I have only visited New Orleans but love it and was happy to be transported back there through the words of someone who notices everything and sees it honestly. I particularly appreciated some of his literary references. WARNING: this book can cause you to buy a lot more books. But, if you love New Orleans, you will treasure them, too.

12 of 14 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Returning to New Orleans, August 13, 2006

By	GR (Missouri) - See all my reviews

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I am a true fan of New Orleans. I read everything I can get my hands on about this city. Andrei Codrescu does an amazing job bringing you right back to this great city. You can almost smell the city as you read it. It is hard to put this book down. This is one of the best books I have ever read about New Orleans, My Love.

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Meet Blanche DuBois, December 18, 2007

By	Lynn Hoffman, author:The Short Course in Beer (Philadelphia) - See all my reviews (TOP 1000 REVIEWER)

"New Orleans is Blache DuBois" the essayist tells us and in a few lines, he gives the evidence for something that we may have suspected. Here is a city that brags about its great literature and then begs you not to read it-or at least not take it seriously. Come buy our life, it says, just don't look at all the death.
And so, unlike many other love songs to particular places, Codrescu's is sad. Perhaps some other cities will evoke the same sense of folly and loss- Venice is a likely candidate-but you can't imagine a similar book about New York or Prague or even Rome.
This is a book of essays whose roots in radio are obvious. You can almost hear them spoken aloud. They are also remarkably personal-the author sees America as a displaced Rumanian-turned-American. The perspective is valuable and he doesn't deny the reader its benefits. Read him following the National Guard as it responds to a flood on the Mississippi near Hannibal, Mo. to be undeceived about us. Read his obit for Jim Monaghan, romantically crusty barkeeper to be gently hoodwinked again.
These are stories about a city, but more fundamentally stories about displacement and encountering one's second home town.
All in all, a great and provocative entertainment.

Lynn Hoffman, author ofbang BANG: A Novel which is set in the author's second home town.