New Orleans: A Literary History

Fine historical recount of conditions and life in a swamp.

Excellent read! Worth it if you love NOLA like I do!

New Orleans is a place where writers go to drink. It therefore holds as unique a place in literature as it holds in music and in American life. My wife, when I lived in New Orleans, called the city, "Paris' trashy younger sister." Since Paris itself is the trashy sister of Europe, New Orleans is a slut. It's a city that indulges the basest instincts for a fee. You can smell the City That Care Forgot rising up out of the pages of T. R. Johnson's literary history of the Crescent City. The unique aroma is at once intoxicating and disgusting, a "funk" he follows like contagion from Haiti to French New Orleans, to American New Orleans, to post-Katrina New Orleans. It's the funk heard round the world, carried by troubadours such as Louis Armstrong, William Faulkner, Bob Dylan, Brenda Marie Osbey, and Kalamu ya Salaam. At the end of the journey, you understand why New Orleans is the most interesting place in America and why it is doomed. This book is how we will remember New Orleans. New Orleans: A Literary History Edited by T. R. Johnson, Tulane University Published by Cambridge University Press, ISBN 978-1-108-49819-7, 2019 Hardcover, 379 pages, 27 essays, contributor bios, historical photographs, indexed

Great book about a great place. Recommend highly.