New Orleans Is Sinking

by Mark Anthony Jarman

A new collection from the author of Savage King Ya! Stories the reviewers have called "dizzyingly energetic" and "wonderfully fierce and funny." Stories that reflect a mind that travels in unexpected, provocative ways, conjuring up dark, rich images. Jarman has appeared in the Journey Prize anthology three times and this year was one of the short list of three. His narrative voice "is kind of North American poetry, fueled by booze, drugs, sex, landscape and violence... and raving with lyrical desire, despair ans above all humour. at its best, this is rich in comic moments" - Saturday Review (from book's back cover)

Genres: Short Stories, Fiction

Paperback

Published January 1, 1998

About the author

Mark Anthony Jarman is the author of Knife Party at the Hotel Europa, My White Planet, 19 Knives, New Orleans Is Sinking, Dancing Nightly in the Tavern, and the travel book Ireland’s Eye. His novel, Salvage King Ya!, is on Amazon.ca’s list of 50 Essential Canadian Books and is the number one book on Amazon’s list of best hockey fiction.

He has won a Gold National Magazine Award in nonfiction, has twice won the Maclean-Hunter Endowment Award, won the Jack Hodgins Fiction Prize, and has been included in The Journey Prize Anthology and Best Canadian Stories and short-listed for the O. Henry Prize and Best American Essays.

He has published in Walrus, Canadian Geographic, Hobart, The Barcelona Review, Vrij Nederland, and reviews for The Globe & Mail. He is a graduate of The Iowa Writers’ Workshop, a Yaddo fellow, has taught at the University of Victoria, the Banff Centre for the Arts, and now teaches at the University of New Brunswick, where he is fiction editor of The Fiddlehead literary journal.

A.S. BYATT on Mark Jarman:

At last. It is very irritating to discover a wonderful book published too long ago to be an official "book of the year". I was talking to a German friend, a few years ago, and we were trying to think of the greatest short story ever. We agreed enthusiastically that it was Henry James's "The Beast in the Jungle". Martin then said reflectively, "Unless it is 'Burn Man on a Texas Porch'." I had never heard of that, nor of its author, Mark Anthony Jarman, a Canadian. (Canadians specialise in great short stories - Munro, Atwood.) Jarman's collection is called 19 Knives, and it is brilliant. The writing is extraordinary, the stories are gripping, it is something new. And now I can say so.

—The Guardian, November 24, 2007

Reviews

[Phil Della · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book of short stories has a unique style that I find annoying at times and at other times I admire it. I had hoped that my previous encounter with Jarman, through his book Dancing Nightly in the Tavern, would turn out to be an aberration, but not so. Both books share a similar non-linear plot style, and come off much like poetic rants. I say that because the telling seems to be more important than the story here. Where I might cut down on the description Jarman lets loose. I suppose this is his claim to fame, as it is not the norm. I want to say that he reminds me of Zsuzsi Gartner, because, like her, style seem to overwhelm plot -- if that makes any sense. It does to me anyway.

My favourite story in the collection has to be "Dangle". It's short and focused on a simple image, that of a reckless father dangling his young son by the ankle over the stairwell. Imagine what might happen and you've got the story.