Unfathomable City: A New Orleans Atlas

City Atlases

by Rebecca Solnit, Rebecca Snedeker

Like the bestselling Infinite City: A San Francisco Atlas, this book is a brilliant reinvention of the traditional atlas, one that provides a vivid, complex look at the multi-faceted nature of New Orleans, a city replete with contradictions. More than twenty essays assemble a chorus of vibrant voices, including geographers, scholars of sugar and bananas, the city's remarkable musicians, prison activists, environmentalists, Arab and Native voices, and local experts, as well as the coauthors' compelling contributions. Featuring 22 full-color two-page-spread maps, Unfathomable City plumbs the depths of this major tourist destination, pivotal scene of American history and culture and, most recently, site of monumental disasters such as Hurricane Katrina and the BP oil spill.

The innovative maps' precision and specificity shift our notions of the Mississippi, the Caribbean, Mardi Gras, jazz, soils and trees, generational roots, and many other subjects, and expand our ideas of how any city is imagined and experienced. Together with the inspired texts, they show New Orleans as both an imperiled city--by erosion, crime, corruption, and sea level rise--and an ageless city that lives in music as a form of cultural resistance. Compact, lively, and completely original, Unfathomable City takes readers on a tour that will forever change the way they think about place.

Read an excerpt here:

Unfathomable City: A New Orleans Atlas by Rebecca Solnit and Rebecca Snedeker by University of California Press

Listen to an interview with the authors here:
http://www.ucpress.edu/blog/16097/new...

Genres: Nonfiction, Travel, History, Essays, Geography, Maps, Cartography

176 pages, Hardcover

First published November 28, 2013

About the author

Writer, historian, and activist Rebecca Solnit is the author of more than twenty books on feminism, western and indigenous history, popular power, social change and insurrection, wandering  and walking, hope and disaster, including Call Them By Their True Names (Winner of the 2018 Kirkus Prize for Nonfiction), Cinderella Liberator, Men Explain Things to Me, The Mother of All Questions, and Hope in the Dark, and co-creator of the City of Women map, all published by Haymarket Books; a trilogy of atlases of American cities, The Faraway Nearby, A Paradise Built in Hell: The Extraordinary Communities that Arise in Disaster, A Field Guide to Getting Lost, Wanderlust: A History of Walking, and River of Shadows: Eadweard Muybridge and the Technological Wild West (for which she received a Guggenheim, the National Book Critics Circle Award in criticism, and the Lannan Literary Award). Her forthcoming memoir, Recollections of My Nonexistence, is scheduled to release in March, 2020. A product of the California public education system from kindergarten to graduate school, she is a columnist at the Guardian and a regular contributor to Literary Hub.

Reviews

[Caroline · Rating 5 out of 5]

A varied bunch of essays, super interesting on the whole.

[Gen · Rating 5 out of 5]

I want to get to KNOW this city!

[Susannah Champlin · Rating 5 out of 5]

I read this so slowly and savored every word because I never wanted it to end.

[Ally · Rating 5 out of 5]

A beautiful tribute to the complicated, wonderful city of New Orleans and especially its people. This book is an atlas, but nothing like you used to find (or maybe still do?) in a gas station convenience store. Within, there are 20 beautiful and heartfelt essays on topics that are relevant to the city's past, present, and future. Each essay is accompanied by an artistic and cartographically accurate map of the city, showing the impact of that particular topic on New Orleans.

One essay, called "Of Levees and Prisons" reflects on the ideas of freedom and containment in New Orleans and Louisiana as a whole. It discusses Louisiana's slavery and segregation, and how they are the state with the largest percentage of its population incarcerated. They are containing many of their own. In relation, through the building of levees and spillways, the state seeks to contain the Mississippi River within rigid borders. The essay suggests that there has to be a better way to function than this kind of containment, when has failed repeatedly. The accompanying map shows the location of the many prisons, customs offices, police stations, and levees throughout New Orleans and the surrounding area. It contrasts these vessels of containment with "flows of freedom" that seek to educate, empower, and assist the population of the area. These include ministry organizations, community aid groups, charities, and the Southern Poverty Law Office.

This book serves not only to tell where you are, but to tell you who is there with you. It gives you perspective on the Crescent City and its many inhabitants...far more deeply than you could ever get as a tourist. You get context, and may develop an appreciation for this area that the author describes as, "unfathomable, endless, protean, immortal, and fragile". I know I have.

[Laura Hoffman Brauman · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is exquisite and is my favorite book that I have picked up so far on New Orleans. It's an atlas - but not an atlas like you might think of at first. It's an atlas that helps you get to know a city, not just to find your way to a specific destination. The Unfathomable City consists of 22 full color, 2 page spread maps that are all accurate, but each focuses on a different aspect of the city and is accompanied by an essay that goes along with the focus of the map. The book opens with a map of the city through time and includes maps such as "Sugar Heaven and Sugar Hell: Pleasures and Brutalities of a Commodity", Of Levees and Prisons: Failures of Containment, Surges of Freedom" and "Lead and Lies: Mouths Full of Poison" Most of the essays in here are written by people that call New Orleans home and this project was truly a love letter to the city. I cannot recommend this highly enough, it makes you long to walk through the neighborhoods.

"New Orleans is a City Incognita, an unknown city, because even those of us who live here tend to know our own fragments, because outsiders know the stereotypes and officially marketed versions, because the city is not its cliches. There is always more. There are also divides and privates and secret societies and prisons (mental and literal), because incognita is a Carnival mask. Everyone loves a secret, except when they're left out, and this book invites people in."

[Anja Sebunya · Rating 5 out of 5]

already hooked… so spot on " So much of the richness of this place is fleeting and forever being renewed: the pleasures of sociability, of festivals and Carnival, of dancing and music, of smiles and greetings and contact, of improvisations that sail out on the night air never to be recaptured but always to be renewed and succeeded."

and

"The culture of this place is ephemeral. There are cities whose principal culture is literary or visual or architectural, media that endure; but this is a city of music and dance, of art coming directly out of the body, of those things that invite audiences to become participants, that unfold in time. Before recording technologies, these arts were entirely of the moment. Music here is still live; people dance to bands more than to recorded music; they dance in the streets and in grand balls; old and young mingle and enjoy the same pleasures' unlike much of the generationally segregated United States; and that might be how the past is passed on, how everyone inherits memory and orientation."

absolutely stunning unbelievably interesting and beautiful book!! have been fascinated by NOLA since the very first time I went and my fascination only grows after reading this collection of essays, maps, conversations, artwork, ideas, laments, praises and fears.

[Molly Ferguson · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is a stunning work of mapping and nonfiction essays that each demonstrate a paradox of New Orleans - the beauty of its culture and spirit vs. its troubled political landscape. There are maps that contrast maps that depict slavery with the prison system there today, or sweet things sold in New Orleans with diabetes and dialysis clinics. The maps are gorgeous, and the essays are so moving. Highly recommend!

[Kristine · Rating 3 out of 5]

Solnit's book on San Francisco read like a love letter to a beloved. While I don't know New Orleans well at all...I suspect this book is also a love letter. I made a long list of places she reference for my next visit when I continue my exploration of NOLA.

[Kim Savage · Rating 5 out of 5]

At one time I thought I wanted to go to New Orleans, so I started reading up on it. It’s kind of interesting to me that most of these fact based books are written by people who “love” NOLA and attempt to explain why. However, it’s basically a turn off for me - which is disappointing. Corrupt politicians, cruel law enforcement, dirty water. Not to mention the nightmare with the oil fiasco in the Gulf. A city built on lies starting way back in the 1600s and continuing today. A lot of what I have read literally turns my stomach.
This book is actually excellent. I was truly interested in the variety of information it shares. I’m probably even going to keep it as a resource book on my shelf. But, I don’t think a parade and a beignet are enough to convince me I need to visit this nutty place. 🤷🏼‍♀️

[Pamela · Rating 5 out of 5]

An unusual and beautiful book. Oversized, it's full of quirky maps that accompany essays on different aspects of New Orleans history, geography, and culture. One essay explains NOLA cemeteries (which eventually had to bury bodies above ground, lest they rise up and shoot out into the streets during floodtime), another covers the role of bananas in NOLA history, many others are on aspects of NOLA's musical culture. Twenty-two essays in all, all worth reading, and the maps are a delight. I took this book on a trip to New Orleans last month and found it enriched everything I saw and did.

[Matt Heimer · Rating 5 out of 5]

A strange, haunting and lovely book that combines essays about culture, politics and economics in post-Katrina New Orleans with maps that illuminate and draw out their themes. And vice versa, actually, since many cases the maps came first. I've got an irrational and unstoppable city crush on New Orleans, so I was predisposed to like this book, but I'd still recommend it to anybody who's interested in graphic storytelling. And to anyone who loves New Orleans, which really should be everybody.

[Anna Coplen · Rating 4 out of 5]

Wonderful read. 22 essays discussing New Orleans topics such as levees, cemeteries, civil rights, oil, carnival parade routes, and the banana trade. Each essay is accompanied by a map to illustrate the essay's main points.

[Autumn · Rating 5 out of 5]

Recommended for all thinking New Orleans lovers. Gorgeous and informative collection of maps about the most interesting city in America. Informed me that I am suffering from Rubber Band Syndrome as a repeat NOLA visitor.

[Ellen Morris Prewitt · Rating 5 out of 5]

Ah, I loved this book. It is gorgeously made. The maps are fabulous, the essays extraordinarily satisfying. One of my favorite writing techniques is to examine unlikely pairings, and this book does that over and over again. A gift, I've had it for a while. I regret it took me so long to dive in.

[Alana · Rating 4 out of 5]

A varied and interesting take on the city. Views it from so many different angles, from music to crime to water to industry. I've learned a lot from the book, the maps, and the stories within. It's not strict history, it's more of a collection of essays and stories on different topics.

[Nancy · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is an absolutely gorgeous book, filled with maps that are works of art and wonderfully written essays. Enjoyable by all but a must for anyone who is interested in New Orleans or who loves maps.

[Jamie · Rating 5 out of 5]

An excellent read. I love the "people who" map.

[Ariel · Rating 5 out of 5]

Maps to make you laugh and cry, and the essays that accompany them are the finest examples of creative analytical writing. Beautiful, engaging and informative.

[Melissa Ooten · Rating 5 out of 5]

A great and eclectic combination of maps and essays. I'm excited to use it with my students in the future...

[Rachael · Rating 5 out of 5]

Amazing ethnographic atlas of NOLA. Fascinating topics and extremely well written.

[April · Rating 5 out of 5]

There's something for everyone in the unfathomable city (and in Unfathomable City).

[Charity P. · Rating 4 out of 5]

layers and layers...i don't know that i could ever figure out that city. beautiful and informative text. rebecca solnit, again for the win.

[Jeff Crompton · Rating 5 out of 5]

This wonderful book celebrates my favorite city, but doesn't shy away from the darker aspects of its past and present. Highly recommended to anyone with any interest in New Orleans.

[Deanna · Rating 5 out of 5]

VERY interesting and unique book. I loved it.

[NOLaBookish aka blue-collared mind · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book gives credit where credit is due. To the city's geography, to its outlandish robber barons of bananas and oil, to the nameless and named that have brought us and bring us music, food, and public displays and joy and sorrow and pain and punishment. It neatly shows a number of juxtapositions that may be uncomfortable for some to view and others that are certainly unfathomable, but it does show them. This is a book of illusory and real maps combined with odd and delightful essays, edited by two sensitive writers is enough for me to tell you.

Let me let the writers and artists tell you themselves in essays and maps such as:

Civil rights and Lemon Ice

Hot and Steamy: Selling Seafood and Selling Sex

Ebb and Flow: Migrations of the Houma, Erosions of the Coast

Juju and Cuckoo: Taking Care of Crazy

Stationary Revelations: Sites of Contemplation and Delight

The first essays introducing this book are alone worth poring over and sharing; how often is that true? That should tell you about the care and thought put into this entire work and offer the best reason to plunk down your money, open it and thumb through while having a Pimm's or a coffee in front of you, tucked away in a shady corner of our shared city. Enjoy it all.
This is a a gorgeous visualization of our city coupled with (some) serious and (some) quirky essays that make clear sardonic, satirical (and always sweetly, secretly hopeful) views of our place. Especially as it relates to government intrusions and the commodifying of our place by different corporate entities and how knowing what parts of our culture can and should be saved is so goddamned difficult to figure out.
Some say, well save it all. Really? the prison culture that our state is #1 in? The crime that is so random and brutal and particularly egregious to the citizens who most often get blamed for it in anonymous comment threads online? Sure, let's save the second lines and the music and the seafood and the old houses. But can we save any of it without some assistance from those mocked authorities? If we can, if we could save ourselves without the government's leading us, how can we do it without addressing what drove my white blue-collar grandparents 30 miles outside of the city and allows our schools to often create more levels of elite classes? That tangle of old and new, good and bad is what I search for in books about New Orleans. If they gloss over it or just as bad, miss the hope and humanity that keeps us here then I put that writing down, never to pick up again. Uh uh, I think- you missed it.
Here, the narrative and the maps-both by what is said and what is unsaid and what is pictured and what is left out-makes clear what these writers value now and what they hope or fear that we will have to value in the future. What else? I like the new voices coupled with the known ones (I love it when I have no expectations of an essay about a known subject and it hits me strongly and I look again at the name of the author and think, "who is this?" That happened to me long ago when I read editor Solnit for the first time as a matter of fact...)
I also appreciate how the clear imperialism of our past (bananas anyone?) shows both the complexities of the U.S. stage that we profit from as a region and the Caribbean reality that we often suffer from in daily life. And the chance to think about how we see and sell things like "seafood and sex", which are remarkably similar in their pitch.

[Sarah · Rating 5 out of 5]

My five-star rating of this book is directly due to my waiting to review it until I had actually gone to New Orleans. When I was reading it at home just before leaving on my trip, I would have put it pretty solidly in four-star territory. It tackles a variety of interesting topics, and many of the maps have thought-provoking juxtapositions, but I found the essays to be a little hit or miss. But as I said, once I actually saw the city, my appreciation of the book increased. It certainly doesn't dwell on must-see tourist attractions, although there are a few maps that one could use to help plan an itinerary. But I didn't really need that anyway, especially not in the age of smartphones. What I did find is that Unfathomable City helped me to better understand aspects of the city that I might otherwise have written off as maybe rundown or sleazy, or even just not of any particular interest. I mean, in some cases the negative characterizations were still kind of true, but at least I knew some more of the backstory to them, and I'd like to hope it made me a little less of a clueless tourist. Plus I kept finding myself bringing up things I'd read in the book to the friends I was traveling with, which is always a good sign. Anyway, like I said, definitely a case where the circumstances of my reading influenced the rating - but good books should manage to weave their way into the rest of your life.

[Ryan]

A beautiful and really fun collection of 22 short essays and accompanying maps/atlases illustrating the content of the essays about New Orleans. This book is oversize and stunning, but comes with what I consider two major flaws: 1), and this is a biggy, because it is a paperback book, and the maps span 2 pages, it is really difficult to see what the maps contain in the middle toward the crease without breaking the spine. In a book that is considered to be an atlas, and one where the maps are obviously created with such care and attention to detail, this feels like a huge design flaw. 2), and this is really a backhanded compliment, some of these essays are way too short. All 22 essays are the same length, about 4 pages, and for some of these subjects that is just the introduction. Granted, some of these things you could write entire books about, and people probably have, but I definitely wanted more on a few of these. But that's okay. The intent is not to be exhaustive, but to provide little snapshots of the culture and history of NOLA, and at that they succeeded. I'd love to see a whole series of these books on different cities. As it is, this is the second, the first one being about San Francisco, which seems less interesting, but I would still like to read it, simply because I love urban history and maps so much!

[Kasandra · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book is beautiful, and would make a fantastic gift for anyone who loves maps, atlases, or the City that Care Forgot. The writing is generally good, if not great, and the choice of essays is an interesting mix. However, there are some misses: why spend 2 full pages (pp. 26-27) to describe people here who could be from anywhere? This particular map seems a complete waste of space, though the accompanying essay by Elie is a good one. The map on pp. 114-115 is nearly impossible to read in terms of its coloration, in an attempt to depict area soils -- again, why spend so much money and time on a map that uses nearly indistinguishable color to delineate soils in the city? Another annoyance: the book is soft-bound and it's hard to read anything on the maps that falls toward the spine of the book, which will not lay flat unless you break the binding. This is a design flaw that feels fairly significant in a book putting so much emphasis on maps and their reading. On the whole, though, this is a gem that invites browsing, a very pretty volume, with some fascinating information (the map of oil pipelines is fantastic, and the one about the banana trade is really neat as well).

[Melody · Rating 5 out of 5]

I've been going to New Orleans at least once a year (many years twice) since 1981. I pride myself on knowing the otbt places. I have my regular things I need to do when I go. Have to have a drink at both the carousel bar and the Sazerac bar. Have to ride in a United cab. Have to visit Hové even though I have plenty of perfume. Run on the neutral ground. Ride the green streetcars. Eat at a place I know I love and try some new place. It's hard to tell me something quirky I don't know.

I was skeptical because Rebecca Solnit is from San Francisco. But she digs in and finds the stories. She hunts for obscure facts and literaly maps them in a book printed on beautiful paper. It feels so luscious to hold. So glad to be going to NO later this week. Yeah. On Amtrak. Can't wait.

[Bonnie · Rating 3 out of 5]

Compilation of maps and accompanying essays by different authors, of varying quality and interest. In my view, as a lover of NOLA but still an outsider, the most interesting map/essay pairings, and the ones that made the book worth reading, were:
Ebb and Flow: Migrations of the Huoma, Erosions of the Coast, along with the essay Southward into the Vanishing Lands;
The Line-UP: Live Oak Corridors and Carnival Parade Routes, and the accompanying essay Sentinals and Celebrants;
Waterland, and the accompanying essay The Cement Lily Pad.