A Season of Night: New Orleans Life after Katrina Book

I'm trying to learn more about my new home and to understand, at least a little bit, what it was like here in the immediate wake of Katrina. Before I moved to New Orleans a meager month ago, I only understood that residents were dedicated to this place in a way that I didn't understand. But in the small amount of time that I've been here, I have already seen so much - and really just a sliver - of what (or who, really) makes this place tick so wonderfully. I think it would be very hard for me to feel this comfortable this quickly anywhere other than here and where I'm from, and if here IS where you're from, I'll bet that's a pretty amplified feeling.

But enough of that; this book is a personal account of someone trying like hell to get back the city he loves. Not to get back TO it - he does that fast - but to get IT back, which means constantly hoping that the diaspora will return from its far flung refugee states, and making it as homey as possible for when they do. The standard, post-storm greeting becomes "you back?" whether you know the person or not, because if you're back, then that's another tiny fraction of the city returned, and it's a tiny step closer to good again.

The details of the memoir are what really painted the picture for me: The dogs going feral in packs on the streets, or in the houses where they had to be left behind, still barking. The first bars to re-open after the storm, still with no power, and the patrons who flock to them thirsty for normalcy and communion. Some bring donated beer that they'll buy back a few minutes later, effectively jump-starting their beloved businesses, and lending real credence to the "for the people, by the people" approach. McNulty takes the time to catalog the things he sees in the piles of personal possessions that are strewn around the city. If he had wanted, I think he could have just made a very long list of things in piles, and that would have been a book on its own. People's stuff telling stories all by itself.

This book belongs somewhere along the sentimental end of the spectrum of books that I plan to read about New Orleans, which will help to balance out the hard history when I get there.

Enough! OK!