Desire And Disaster In New Orleans

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Desire and Disaster in New Orleans

Author : Lynnell L. Thomas
Publisher : Duke University Press
ISBN 13 : 0822376350
Total Pages : 272 pages
Book Rating : 4.8/5 (223 download)

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Book Synopsis Desire and Disaster in New Orleans by : Lynnell L. Thomas

Download or read book Desire and Disaster in New Orleans written by Lynnell L. Thomas and published by Duke University Press. This book was released on 2014-07-30 with total page 272 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Most of the narratives packaged for New Orleans's many tourists cultivate a desire for black culture—jazz, cuisine, dance—while simultaneously targeting black people and their communities as sources and sites of political, social, and natural disaster. In this timely book, the Americanist and New Orleans native Lynnell L. Thomas delves into the relationship between tourism, cultural production, and racial politics. She carefully interprets the racial narratives embedded in tourism websites, travel guides, business periodicals, and newspapers; the thoughts of tour guides and owners; and the stories told on bus and walking tours as they were conducted both before and after Katrina. She describes how, with varying degrees of success, African American tour guides, tour owners, and tourism industry officials have used their own black heritage tours and tourism-focused businesses to challenge exclusionary tourist representations. Taking readers from the Lower Ninth Ward to the White House, Thomas highlights the ways that popular culture and public policy converge to create a mythology of racial harmony that masks a long history of racial inequality and structural inequity.

Katrina

Author : Andy Horowitz
Publisher : Harvard University Press
ISBN 13 : 0674246764
Total Pages : 297 pages
Book Rating : 4.6/5 (742 download)

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Book Synopsis Katrina by : Andy Horowitz

Download or read book Katrina written by Andy Horowitz and published by Harvard University Press. This book was released on 2020-07-07 with total page 297 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Winner of the Bancroft Prize Louisiana Endowment for the Humanities Book of the Year A Publishers Weekly Book of the Year “The main thrust of Horowitz’s account is to make us understand Katrina—the civic calamity, not the storm itself—as a consequence of decades of bad decisions by humans, not an unanticipated caprice of nature.” —Nicholas Lemann, New Yorker Hurricane Katrina made landfall in New Orleans on August 29, 2005, but the decisions that caused the disaster can be traced back nearly a century. After the city weathered a major hurricane in 1915, its Sewerage and Water Board believed that developers could safely build housing near the Mississippi, on lowlands that relied on significant government subsidies to stay dry. When the flawed levee system failed, these were the neighborhoods that were devastated. The flood line tells one important story about Katrina, but it is not the only story that matters. Andy Horowitz investigates the response to the flood, when policymakers made it easier for white New Orleanians to return home than for African Americans. He explores how the profits and liabilities created by Louisiana’s oil industry have been distributed unevenly, prompting dreams of abundance and a catastrophic land loss crisis that continues today. “Masterful...Disasters have the power to reveal who we are, what we value, what we’re willing—and unwilling—to protect.” —New York Review of Books “If you want to read only one book to better understand why people in positions of power in government and industry do so little to address climate change, even with wildfires burning and ice caps melting and extinctions becoming a daily occurrence, this is the one.” —Los Angeles Review of Books

Catastrophe in the Making

Author : William R. Freudenburg
Publisher : Island Press
ISBN 13 : 9781610911634
Total Pages : 0 pages
Book Rating : 4.9/5 (116 download)

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Book Synopsis Catastrophe in the Making by : William R. Freudenburg

Download or read book Catastrophe in the Making written by William R. Freudenburg and published by Island Press. This book was released on 2011-08-08 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: When houses are flattened, towns submerged, and people stranded without electricity or even food, we attribute the suffering to “natural disasters” or “acts of God.” But what if they’re neither? What if we, as a society, are bringing these catastrophes on ourselves? That’s the provocative theory of Catastrophe in the Making, the first book to recognize Hurricane Katrina not as a “perfect storm,” but a tragedy of our own making—and one that could become commonplace. The authors, one a longtime New Orleans resident, argue that breached levees and sloppy emergency response are just the most obvious examples of government failure. The true problem is more deeply rooted and insidious, and stretches far beyond the Gulf Coast. Based on the false promise of widespread prosperity, communities across the U.S. have embraced all brands of “economic development” at all costs. In Louisiana, that meant development interests turning wetlands into shipping lanes. By replacing a natural buffer against storm surges with a 75-mile long, obsolete canal that cost hundreds of millions of dollars, they guided the hurricane into the heart of New Orleans and adjacent communities. The authors reveal why, despite their geographic differences, California and Missouri are building—quite literally—toward similar destruction. Too often, the U.S. “growth machine” generates wealth for a few and misery for many. Drawing lessons from the most expensive “natural” disaster in American history, Catastrophe in the Making shows why thoughtless development comes at a price we can ill afford.

Remaking New Orleans

Author : Thomas Jessen Adams
Publisher : Duke University Press Books
ISBN 13 : 9781478001829
Total Pages : 0 pages
Book Rating : 4.0/5 (18 download)

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Book Synopsis Remaking New Orleans by : Thomas Jessen Adams

Download or read book Remaking New Orleans written by Thomas Jessen Adams and published by Duke University Press Books. This book was released on 2019-05-17 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Approached as a wellspring of cultural authenticity and historical exceptionality, New Orleans appears in opposition to a nation perpetually driven by progress. Remaking New Orleans shows how this narrative is rooted in a romantic cultural tradition, continuously repackaged through the twin engines of tourism and economic development, and supported by research that has isolated the city from comparison and left unquestioned its entrenched inequality. Working against this feedback loop, the contributors place New Orleans at the forefront of national patterns of urban planning, place-branding, structural inequality, and racialization. Nontraditional sites like professional wrestling matches, middle-class black suburbs, and Vietnamese gardens take precedence over clichéd renderings of Creole cuisine, voodoo queens, and hot jazz. Covering the city's founding through its present and highlighting changing political and social formations, this volume remakes New Orleans as a rich site for understanding the quintessential concerns of American cities. Contributors. Thomas Jessen Adams, Vincanne Adams, Vern Baxter, Maria Celeste Casati Allegretti, Shannon Lee Dawdy, Rien Fertel, Megan French-Marcelin, Cedric G. Johnson, Alecia P. Long, Vicki Mayer, Toby Miller, Sue Mobley, Marguerite Nguyen, Aaron Nyerges, Adolph Reed Jr., Helen A. Regis, Matt Sakakeeny, Heidi Schmalbach, Felipe Smith, Bryan Wagner

A Paradise Built in Hell

Author : Rebecca Solnit
Publisher : Penguin
ISBN 13 : 1101459018
Total Pages : 369 pages
Book Rating : 4.1/5 (14 download)

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Book Synopsis A Paradise Built in Hell by : Rebecca Solnit

Download or read book A Paradise Built in Hell written by Rebecca Solnit and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2010-08-31 with total page 369 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The author of Men Explain Things to Me explores the moments of altruism and generosity that arise in the aftermath of disaster Why is it that in the aftermath of a disaster? whether manmade or natural?people suddenly become altruistic, resourceful, and brave? What makes the newfound communities and purpose many find in the ruins and crises after disaster so joyous? And what does this joy reveal about ordinarily unmet social desires and possibilities? In A Paradise Built in Hell, award-winning author Rebecca Solnit explores these phenomena, looking at major calamities from the 1906 earthquake in San Francisco through the 1917 explosion that tore up Halifax, Nova Scotia, the 1985 Mexico City earthquake, 9/11, and Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans. She examines how disaster throws people into a temporary utopia of changed states of mind and social possibilities, as well as looking at the cost of the widespread myths and rarer real cases of social deterioration during crisis. This is a timely and important book from an acclaimed author whose work consistently locates unseen patterns and meanings in broad cultural histories.

Markets of Sorrow, Labors of Faith

Author : Vincanne Adams
Publisher : Duke University Press
ISBN 13 : 0822354497
Total Pages : 237 pages
Book Rating : 4.8/5 (223 download)

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Book Synopsis Markets of Sorrow, Labors of Faith by : Vincanne Adams

Download or read book Markets of Sorrow, Labors of Faith written by Vincanne Adams and published by Duke University Press. This book was released on 2013-03-04 with total page 237 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This ethnographic account of long-term recovery in post-Katrina New Orleans provides a sobering look at the fallout from the privatization of vital social services under neoliberal, or market-driven, governance.

A.D.

Author : Josh Neufeld
Publisher : Pantheon
ISBN 13 : 0307378144
Total Pages : 210 pages
Book Rating : 4.3/5 (73 download)

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Book Synopsis A.D. by : Josh Neufeld

Download or read book A.D. written by Josh Neufeld and published by Pantheon. This book was released on 2009 with total page 210 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Presents the stories of seven survivors of Hurricane Katrina who tried to evacuate, protect their possessions, and save loved ones before, during, and after the flood.

Breach of Faith

Author : Jed Horne
Publisher : Random House Trade Paperbacks
ISBN 13 : 0812976509
Total Pages : 466 pages
Book Rating : 4.8/5 (129 download)

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Book Synopsis Breach of Faith by : Jed Horne

Download or read book Breach of Faith written by Jed Horne and published by Random House Trade Paperbacks. This book was released on 2008-07-15 with total page 466 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Hurricane Katrina shredded one of the great cities of the South, and as levees failed and the federal relief effort proved lethally incompetent, a natural disaster became a man-made catastrophe. As an editor of New Orleans’ daily newspaper, the Pulitzer Prize—winning Times-Picayune, Jed Horne has had a front-row seat to the unfolding drama of the city’s collapse into chaos and its continuing struggle to survive. As the Big One bore down, New Orleanians rich and poor, black and white, lurched from giddy revelry to mandatory evacuation. The thousands who couldn’t or wouldn’t leave initially congratulated themselves on once again riding out the storm. But then the unimaginable happened: Within a day 80 percent of the city was under water. The rising tides chased horrified men and women into snake-filled attics and onto the roofs of their houses. Heroes in swamp boats and helicopters braved wind and storm surge to bring survivors to dry ground. Mansions and shacks alike were swept away, and then a tidal wave of lawlessness inundated the Big Easy. Screams and gunshots echoed through the blacked-out Superdome. Police threw away their badges and joined in the looting. Corpses drifted in the streets for days, and buildings marinated for weeks in a witches’ brew of toxic chemicals that, when the floodwaters finally were pumped out, had turned vast reaches of the city into a ghost town. Horne takes readers into the private worlds and inner thoughts of storm victims from all walks of life to weave a tapestry as intricate and vivid as the city itself. Politicians, thieves, nurses, urban visionaries, grieving mothers, entrepreneurs with an eye for quick profit at public expense–all of these lives collide in a chronicle that is harrowing, angry, and often slyly ironic. Even before stranded survivors had been plucked from their roofs, government officials embarked on a vicious blame game that further snarled the relief operation and bedeviled scientists striving to understand the massive levee failures and build New Orleans a foolproof flood defense. As Horne makes clear, this shameless politicization set the tone for the ongoing reconstruction effort, which has been haunted by racial and class tensions from the start. Katrina was a catastrophe deeply rooted in the politics and culture of the city that care forgot and of a nation that forgot to care. In Breach of Faith, Jed Horne has created a spellbinding epic of one of the worst disasters of our time.

The Shock Doctrine

Author : Naomi Klein
Publisher : Metropolitan Books
ISBN 13 : 1429919485
Total Pages : 576 pages
Book Rating : 4.4/5 (299 download)

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Book Synopsis The Shock Doctrine by : Naomi Klein

Download or read book The Shock Doctrine written by Naomi Klein and published by Metropolitan Books. This book was released on 2010-04-01 with total page 576 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The bestselling author of No Logo shows how the global "free market" has exploited crises and shock for three decades, from Chile to Iraq In her groundbreaking reporting, Naomi Klein introduced the term "disaster capitalism." Whether covering Baghdad after the U.S. occupation, Sri Lanka in the wake of the tsunami, or New Orleans post-Katrina, she witnessed something remarkably similar. People still reeling from catastrophe were being hit again, this time with economic "shock treatment," losing their land and homes to rapid-fire corporate makeovers. The Shock Doctrine retells the story of the most dominant ideology of our time, Milton Friedman's free market economic revolution. In contrast to the popular myth of this movement's peaceful global victory, Klein shows how it has exploited moments of shock and extreme violence in order to implement its economic policies in so many parts of the world from Latin America and Eastern Europe to South Africa, Russia, and Iraq. At the core of disaster capitalism is the use of cataclysmic events to advance radical privatization combined with the privatization of the disaster response itself. Klein argues that by capitalizing on crises, created by nature or war, the disaster capitalism complex now exists as a booming new economy, and is the violent culmination of a radical economic project that has been incubating for fifty years.

We're Still Here Ya Bastards

Author : Roberta Brandes Gratz
Publisher : Bold Type Books
ISBN 13 : 1568585004
Total Pages : 433 pages
Book Rating : 4.5/5 (685 download)

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Book Synopsis We're Still Here Ya Bastards by : Roberta Brandes Gratz

Download or read book We're Still Here Ya Bastards written by Roberta Brandes Gratz and published by Bold Type Books. This book was released on 2015-06-09 with total page 433 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The aftermath of Hurricane Katrina is one of the darkest chapters in American history. The storm caused unprecedented destruction, and a toxic combination of government neglect and socioeconomic inequality turned a crisis into a tragedy. But among the rubble, there is hope. We're Still Here Ya Bastards presents an extraordinary panoramic look at New Orleans's revival in the years following the hurricane. Award-winning journalist Roberta Brandes Gratz shares the stories of people who returned to their homes and have taken the rebuilding of their city into their own hands. She shows how the city -- from the Lower Ninth Ward to the storied French Quarter to Bayou Bienvenue -- is recovering despite flawed governmental policies that promote disaster capitalism rather than the public good. While tracing positive trends, Gratz also investigates the most fiercely debated issues and challenges facing the city: a violent and corrupt prison system, the tragic closing of Charity Hospital, the future of public education, and the rise of gentrification. By telling stories that are often ignored by the mainstream media, We're Still Here Ya Bastards shows the strength and resilience of a community that continues to work to rebuild New Orleans, and reveals what Katrina couldn't destroy: the vibrant culture, epic history, and unwavering pride of one of the greatest cities in America.

Almost Hollywood, Nearly New Orleans

Author : Vicki Mayer
Publisher : Univ of California Press
ISBN 13 : 0520293819
Total Pages : 162 pages
Book Rating : 4.5/5 (22 download)

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Book Synopsis Almost Hollywood, Nearly New Orleans by : Vicki Mayer

Download or read book Almost Hollywood, Nearly New Orleans written by Vicki Mayer and published by Univ of California Press. This book was released on 2017-02-24 with total page 162 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A free ebook version of this title is available through Luminos, University of California Press’s Open Access publishing program. Visit www.luminosoa.org to learn more. Early in the twenty-first century, Louisiana, one of the poorest states in the United States, redirected millions in tax dollars from the public coffers in an effort to become the top location site globally for the production of Hollywood films and television series. Why would lawmakers support such a policy? Why would citizens accept the policy’s uncomfortable effects on their economy and culture? Almost Hollywood, Nearly New Orleans addresses these questions through a study of the local and everyday experiences of the film economy in New Orleans, Louisiana—a city that has twice pursued the goal of becoming a movie production capital. From the silent era to today’s Hollywood South, Vicki Mayer explains that the aura of a film economy is inseparable from a prevailing sense of home, even as it changes that place irrevocably.

After Katrina

Author : Anna Hartnell
Publisher : State University of New York Press
ISBN 13 : 1438464193
Total Pages : 290 pages
Book Rating : 4.4/5 (384 download)

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Book Synopsis After Katrina by : Anna Hartnell

Download or read book After Katrina written by Anna Hartnell and published by State University of New York Press. This book was released on 2017-01-25 with total page 290 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Argues that post-Katrina New Orleans is a key site for exploring competing narratives of American decline and renewal at the beginning of the twenty-first century. Through the lens provided by the tenth anniversary of Hurricane Katrina, After Katrina argues that the city of New Orleans emerges as a key site for exploring competing narratives of US decline and renewal at the beginning of the twenty-first century. Deploying an interdisciplinary approach to explore cultural representations of the post-storm city, Anna Hartnell suggests that New Orleans has been reimagined as a laboratory for a racialized neoliberalism, and as such might be seen as a terminus of the American dream. This US disaster zone has unveiled a network of social and environmental crises that demonstrate that prospects of social mobility have dwindled as environmental degradation and coastal erosion emerge as major threats not just to the quality of life but to the possibility of life in coastal communities across America and the world. And yet After Katrina also suggests that New Orleans culture offers a way of thinking about the United States in terms that transcend the binary of national renewal or declension. The post-Hurricane city thus emerges as a flashpoint for reflecting on the contemporary United States. Anna Hartnell is Senior Lecturer in Contemporary Literature at Birkbeck, University of London, and the author of Rewriting Exodus: American Futures from Du Bois to Obama.

Stokely

Author : Peniel E. Joseph
Publisher : Civitas Books
ISBN 13 : 0465080480
Total Pages : 426 pages
Book Rating : 4.4/5 (65 download)

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Book Synopsis Stokely by : Peniel E. Joseph

Download or read book Stokely written by Peniel E. Joseph and published by Civitas Books. This book was released on 2014-03-04 with total page 426 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From the author of The Sword and the Shield, this definitive biography of the Black Power activist Stokely Carmichael offers "an unflinching look at an unflinching man" (Daily Beast). Stokely Carmichael, the charismatic and controversial Black activist, stepped onto the pages of history when he called for "Black Power" during a speech one Mississippi night in 1966. A firebrand who straddled both the American civil rights and Black Power movements, Carmichael would stand for the rest of his life at the center of the storm he had unleashed. In Stokely, preeminent civil rights scholar Peniel E. Joseph presents a groundbreaking biography of Carmichael, using his life as a prism through which to view the transformative African American freedom struggles of the twentieth century. A nuanced and authoritative portrait, Stokely captures the life of the man whose uncompromising vision defined political radicalism and provoked a national reckoning on race and democracy.

The Politics of Black Joy

Author : Lindsey Stewart
Publisher : Northwestern University Press
ISBN 13 : 0810144123
Total Pages : 292 pages
Book Rating : 4.8/5 (11 download)

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Book Synopsis The Politics of Black Joy by : Lindsey Stewart

Download or read book The Politics of Black Joy written by Lindsey Stewart and published by Northwestern University Press. This book was released on 2021-09-15 with total page 292 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: During the antebellum period, slave owners weaponized southern Black joy to argue for enslavement, propagating images of “happy darkies.” In contrast, abolitionists wielded sorrow by emphasizing racial oppression. Both arguments were so effective that a political uneasiness on the subject still lingers. In The Politics of Black Joy, Lindsey Stewart wades into these uncomfortable waters by analyzing Zora Neale Hurston’s uses of the concept of Black southern joy. Stewart develops Hurston’s contributions to political theory and philosophy of race by introducing the politics of joy as a refusal of neo-abolitionism, a political tradition that reduces southern Black life to tragedy or social death. To develop the politics of joy, Stewart draws upon Zora Neale Hurston’s essays, Beyoncé’s Lemonade, and figures across several disciplines including Frederick Douglass, W. E. B. Du Bois, Toni Morrison, Angela Davis, Saidiya Hartman, Imani Perry, Eddie Glaude, and Audra Simpson. The politics of joy offers insights that are crucial for forming needed new paths in our current moment. For those interested in examining popular conceptions of Black political agency at the intersection of geography, gender, class, and Black spirituality, The Politics of Black Joy is essential reading.

Voices from the Storm

Author : Lola Vollen
Publisher : Haymarket Books
ISBN 13 : 1642595462
Total Pages : 253 pages
Book Rating : 4.6/5 (425 download)

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Book Synopsis Voices from the Storm by : Lola Vollen

Download or read book Voices from the Storm written by Lola Vollen and published by Haymarket Books. This book was released on 2023-06-15 with total page 253 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Hurricane Katrina inflicted damage on a scale unprecedented in American history, nearly destroying a major city and killing thousands of its citizens. With far too little help from indifferent, incompetent government agencies, the poor bore the brunt of the disaster. The residents of traditionally impoverished and minority communities suffered incalculable losses and endured unimaginable conditions. And the few facilities that did exist to help victims quickly became miserable, dangerous places. Now, the victims of Hurricane Katrina find themselves spread across the United States, far from the homes they left and faced with the prospect of starting anew. Families are struggling to secure jobs, homes, schools, and a sense of place in unfamiliar surroundings. Meanwhile, the rebuilding of their former home remains frustrating out of their hands. This bracing read brings readers to the heart of the disaster and its aftermath as those who survived it speak with candor and eloquence of their lives then and now.

HBO's Treme and Post-Katrina Catharsis

Author : Dominique Gendrin
Publisher : Lexington Books
ISBN 13 : 1498545610
Total Pages : 339 pages
Book Rating : 4.4/5 (985 download)

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Book Synopsis HBO's Treme and Post-Katrina Catharsis by : Dominique Gendrin

Download or read book HBO's Treme and Post-Katrina Catharsis written by Dominique Gendrin and published by Lexington Books. This book was released on 2017-04-07 with total page 339 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Ten years after Hurricane Katrina, outsiders will have two versions of the Katrina experience. One version will be the images they recall from news coverage of the aftermath. The other will be the intimate portrayal of the determination of New Orleans residents to rebuild and recover their lives. HBO’s Treme offers outsiders an inside look into why New Orleanians refused to abandon a place that many questioned should not be rebuilt after the levees failed. This critically acclaimed series expanded the boundaries of television making in its format, plot, casting, use of music, and realism-in-fictionalized-TV. However, Treme is not just a story for the outside gaze on New Orleans. It was a very local, collaborative experience where the show’s creators sought to enlist the city in a commemorative project. Treme allowed many in the city who worked as principals, extras, and who tuned in as avid viewers to heal from the devastation of the disaster as they experimented with art, imitating life, imitating art. This book examines the impact of HBOs Treme not just as television making, but in the sense in which television provides a window to our worlds. The book pulls together scholarship in media, communications, gender, area studies, political economy, critical studies, African American studies and music to explain why Treme was not just about television.

Louisiana in Words

Author : Joshua Clark
Publisher : Pelican Publishing
ISBN 13 : 9781455607778
Total Pages : 212 pages
Book Rating : 4.6/5 (77 download)

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Book Synopsis Louisiana in Words by : Joshua Clark

Download or read book Louisiana in Words written by Joshua Clark and published by Pelican Publishing. This book was released on 2007-02-28 with total page 212 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "Louisiana in Words is a Book of Hours for a place that's more like a religion than a state." -Josh Russell, author of Yellow Jack "Here we are, Louisianians all, somewhere in this book, but after that sense of self-recognition comes a desire to go to every place in this book, see it, know it like the writer does, experience our home state's every corner." -New Orleans Times-Picayune Taste, smell, hear, and see Louisiana in this collection of one-minute experiences taking place over a twenty-four-hour period across the Pelican State. One hundred twenty Louisiana-born or current resident contributors of all ages, backgrounds, and perspectives have offered their grateful, graceful, and grave visions of the state, a place as evocative as the essays within this gathering of voices. The ultimate insider's look, the book provides an unparalleled feel for hitherto hidden worlds inside the state. Together these minutes provide a mosaic of the landscape, heritage, speech, and traditions of Louisiana, a place so often romanticized, demonized, adored, pitied, and patronized. Contributors were asked to write one page or less about one minute, anytime, anywhere, in Louisiana. Writers selected include award-winning writers such as John Biguenet, Andrei Codrescu, Barry Gifford, Bev Marshall, David Madden, Lee Meitzen Grue, and Fredrick Barton as well as novice writers of all ages. Passages cast Louisiana's diverse peoples as backdrop against the action that transpires within the minute. Authors and their stories' settings reflect the entire state, from the northeast corner near Lake Providence to Lake Charles in the southeast; from Monroe along the Ouachita River and Shreveport in the northwest to Lafayette, the heart of Cajun country; from the south-centrally located Alexandria on the Red River to the southernmost port of New Orleans.