Rose carries us on a rocking horse of a ride. A New Orleans reporter whose family was displaced by the storm that wiped out an American city, first by Katrina and then by incompetence on the Federal and local level.Indelible images of the permanent brown water stain left behind, refrigerators lined up on every city block, the smell and the general PTSD that claimed every soul in the Big Easy give a sense, a small sense of what it means to be a survivor in this city.
It's not an easy read but it's flecked with humor even through the worse bits, in short stream of consciousness essays originally printed in the Times-Picayune newspaper Rose wrote for. Jazzfest, Mardi Gras, the Saints--what does anyone from the Great Elsewhere (anyone who's not from New Orleans) know about that? "Hell and Back", the longest chapter near the back of the book is probably the most essential chapter, about Rose's descent into depression and what finally lifted it.