Helpful Score: 3
This was not an easy book to read, but returning to New Orleans after Katrina was not an easy experience for Chris Rose, or for anyone else. This is a compilation of columns that Chris Rose published in the Times-Picayune for a year and a half after Katrina's landfall. They are fascinating and heart-wrenching.
Helpful Score: 2
There's a quote in this book that says, "I'm not going to try to lay down in words the lure of this place. Every great writer in the land, from Faulkner to Twain to Rice to Ford, has tried to do it and fallen short." I think, however, that Rose has done just the opposite. Through his humor, honesty, emotion, and stories, Rose paints a captivating picture of New Orleans. He really has captured the "lure of this place," through all of its sorrow and hope. Whether you're from New Orleans or not, I really recommend this book.
Helpful Score: 2
Oh my gosh I LOVE this book. I remember all of these colums after Katrina and if anyone could put down in words how all of us were thinking and feeling at that time it was Chris Rose.
He became a local hero, holding us together with his columns in the paper. One of us would have to drive out to get the paper just to see what Chris had written and the paper would be passed around the neighborhood so that everyone could read his column.
If you were here this will bring back memories both good and bad; if you wern't here it may give some insight into how we were thinking and feeling at that time.
He became a local hero, holding us together with his columns in the paper. One of us would have to drive out to get the paper just to see what Chris had written and the paper would be passed around the neighborhood so that everyone could read his column.
If you were here this will bring back memories both good and bad; if you wern't here it may give some insight into how we were thinking and feeling at that time.
Helpful Score: 1
Chris Rose is a reporter for the Times-Picayune in Louisiana. He continued to write his column for the paper after Katrina devastated New Orleans.
How this man was able to survive and forgo his devastation and continue to see the good and the bad during this disaster is the most striking part of these vignettes about life in the aftermath.
The stories of refigerators that line the roads, appliances being sunk into potholes big enough to do that in, how some people didn't experience any devastation, how some holed up in their homes and didn't face it, how some brought major crime to the area, how some went out of their way to help others, even with just a smile or a touch.
I felt a poignant feeling reading this, as I was reading this as Japan became devastated by it's own horrific weather-related undoing. It makes you ponder what you would do in such a situation.
Cudos to Chris Rose and people like him who are working toward making Louisiana a community again, however slowly that happens.
How this man was able to survive and forgo his devastation and continue to see the good and the bad during this disaster is the most striking part of these vignettes about life in the aftermath.
The stories of refigerators that line the roads, appliances being sunk into potholes big enough to do that in, how some people didn't experience any devastation, how some holed up in their homes and didn't face it, how some brought major crime to the area, how some went out of their way to help others, even with just a smile or a touch.
I felt a poignant feeling reading this, as I was reading this as Japan became devastated by it's own horrific weather-related undoing. It makes you ponder what you would do in such a situation.
Cudos to Chris Rose and people like him who are working toward making Louisiana a community again, however slowly that happens.
Helpful Score: 1
Rose continued cranking out the columns following Katrina - I guess they were considered vital by fellow New Orleans residents. Frankly they left me cold and made me want to ask, 'Is it really all about you, Mr. Rose?' Not particularly well written or well arranged.
