Happy Mardi Gras! Mardi Gras, or Fat Tuesday, always reminds me of New Orleans, so this week’s list includes books and movies that feature the city as a major component of the story.
City of Refuge by Tom Piazza: Two New Orleans families-one black and one white-confront a storm that will change the course of their lives. S.J. Williams, a carpenter and widower, lives and works in the Lower Ninth Ward. Across town, Craig Donaldson, a Midwestern transplant, is the editor of the city's alternative paper. When the news comes of Katrina, the two families make very different plans to weather the storm. The Donaldsons join the long evacuation convoy north, while S.J. boards up his windows, where he waits it out. But when the levees give way and the flood waters come, the fate of each family changes forever.
Groove interrupted : loss, renewal, and the music of New Orleans by Keith Spera: The city’s vibrant, idiosyncratic music community is reflected in the stories of Aaron Neville, Fats Domino, Alex Chilton, Mystikal, and Terence Blanchard after Katrina. The spotlight also shines on Allen Toussaint, Pete Fountain, Gatemouth Brown, the Rebirth Brass Band, and others. Each of these contemporary narratives stands on its own, and together, they convey the funky, syncopated spirit of New Orleans music.
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Killer on a Hot Tin Roof by Livia J. Washburn: Delilah Dickinson is looking forward to a relaxing getaway leading her literary travel agency's latest tour at the annual Tennessee Williams Literary Festival in New Orleans. But a group of low-key English professors waste little time drawing their claws, especially when one of them claims he can prove Williams didn't even write Cat on a Hot Tin Roof. But when the supposed real author turns up dead, Delilah knows she's got to get to the bottom of things...even if the truth is as dirty as all them lies!
The Curious Case of Benjamin Button: Based on short story by F. Scott Fitzgerald, this DVD stars Brad Pitt. Daisy, on her deathbed in a New Orleans hospital, asks her adult daughter, Caroline, to read to her from the diary of Benjamin. Benjamin's diary recounts his extraordinary life, unusual because he ages backwards, born an old man and getting younger with time. Benjamin is raised by Queenie, a caregiver at a seniors' home where Daisy's grandmother was a resident, which is where Daisy first meets Benjamin. Although separated through the years, Daisy and Benjamin remain in contact throughout their lives, reconnecting in their forties when they finally match up in age.
Find out what's happening in Greenfieldwith free, real-time updates from Patch.
A Confederacy of Dunces by John Kennedy Toole: Ignatius J. Reilly, the 30-year-old hero, lives at home with his mother in New Orleans, pens his magnum opus on Big Chief writing pads he keeps hidden under his bed, and relays to anyone who will listen the traumatic experience he once had on a Greyhound Scenicruiser. Ignatius stumbles from one adventure to the next with many subplots that weave through the book as complicated as anything in a Dickens novel, and just as beautifully tied together in the end. But Ignatius—a modern-day Quixote--carries the story. His fragility cracks the shell of comic bluster, revealing a deep streak of melancholy beneath the humor. Winner of the 1981 Pulitzer prize.
Laissez les bon temps rouler!
