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New Orleans Stories: Great Writers on the City
Alive with jazz and tropical flowers, its streets an intoxicating 24-hour party, New Orleans exerts a hypnotic effect on virtually every visitor and resident, but perhaps none have been more susceptible to its exotic charm than the writers who have lived there. From Mark Twain to William Faulkner to Anne Rice; from Kate Chopin to Zora Neale Hurston to Ellen Gilchrist; from Tennessee Williams to Truman Capote to Walker Percy, the authors in this remarkable collection celebrate the city that stirs their imaginations as no other can. Third in our best-selling series of anthologies centered around America's great cities, New Orleans Stories includes not only "literature," but also interviews, ghost stories, and voodoo charms. Perfect for first-time visitors as well as longtime residents, it re-creates the heady, mesmerizing atmosphere of New Orleans itself.
217 pages, Paperback
First published March 1, 1992
5 people are currently reading
107 people want to read
About the author
John Miller
45 booksJohn Miller has edited a number of intriguing anthologies for Chronicle Books, including Lust and White Rabbit. He runs Big Fish Books, a packaging company in San Francisco.
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Displaying 1 - 22 of 22 reviews
August 27, 2019
I've been an avid reader of short stories for over 50 years, grabbing snippets of time here and there in a busy schedule, sometimes just enough to read 10 or 12 pages, a complete story in many cases. Over a fast food lunch while on the road, waiting to see my doctor, waiting to meet up with a friend, the last 30-60 minutes of the day as I empty my head and drift off to sleep, I always carry a collection of short stories with me. Before retirement, in my work-a-day world, I carried work related articles from professional magazines to fill in these voids. Why carry the whole magazine if you only want to read 1-2 articles? Tear out the article, discard the magazine. I was able to stay current with the business trends of my career in the few minutes waiting on the dentist or while getting an oil change on my car, etc.
So, when I saw "New Orleans Stories, Great Writers of the City" on the clearance table at Dimple Books and Records, I snapped it up. The back cover read, "There is no place quite like New Orleans (I would have to agree) -- the city that dreams stories, and where writers come to eaves drop." Intriguing. It rolled out a long list of included authors -- Anne Rice, John Kennedy Toole, John James Audubon, Truman Compote, William Thackeray, William Faulkner, Walt Whitman, Robert Penn Warren and many others. A "Who's Who" list. The Table of Contents list 22 stories, along with a list of Author Biographies. A total of 217 pages, about 8-10 pages per story. Perfect "snippets." This looked like a good read and a good purchase for $3.00 ($14.95 retail), not that I needed another book, but I'm a sucker for "snippets" and a "good bargain."
The book opens with an Introduction by Andrei Cordescu, which the Author Biographies says is a Rumanian poet who lives in NO and edits "Exquisite Corpse: A Journal of Letters and Life" and is a commentator for National Public Radio. He sets the scene in the Introduction -- New Orleans, the city that dreams stories, stories from the Old Country, the city of ghosts and goblins, voodoo and witch doctors. "New Orleans is a small city but it seems spacious because it is always full of people . . . like a crowded Barron at night."
He tells the story of writers who come to visit and never leave, the story of Marie Laveau, voodoo queen buried in St. Louis Cemetary, and Anne Rice's vampire Lestat who lives in one of the tombs. F. Scott Fitzgerald wrote "This Side of Paradise, his first novel, in an apartment overlooking the cemetary. Get the picture?
In the first story, Anonymous lays down the 1699 ship's journal "The Exploration of Louisiana," a journey up the Mississippi River. In "The Movie Goer," Walker Percy tells of the stalking of William Holden through the coffee shops, gift shops and bakeries of New Orleans, a delightful story and my favorite of the book. "Growing Up in New Orleans," by Jazz trumpeteer Louis "Satchmo" Armstrong was equally as delightful and entertaining. On the other hand, I could not get through Anne Rice's description of Mardi Gras, "The Feast if All Saints," very heavy and ponderous. After about 4-5 pages, I gave up. William Faulkner's "Absalom, Absalom," written in 1936, was equally as difficult to get through. Others, well worth the read: Tennessee Williams' "A Streetcar Named Desire," Truman Capote's "Dazzle," Mark Twain's " Southern Sports," and Walt Whitman's "Three New Orleans Sketches." This book proved to be a bargain and I felt charmed and entertained. I will look for a hint if these authors on my next trip to New Orleans.
So, when I saw "New Orleans Stories, Great Writers of the City" on the clearance table at Dimple Books and Records, I snapped it up. The back cover read, "There is no place quite like New Orleans (I would have to agree) -- the city that dreams stories, and where writers come to eaves drop." Intriguing. It rolled out a long list of included authors -- Anne Rice, John Kennedy Toole, John James Audubon, Truman Compote, William Thackeray, William Faulkner, Walt Whitman, Robert Penn Warren and many others. A "Who's Who" list. The Table of Contents list 22 stories, along with a list of Author Biographies. A total of 217 pages, about 8-10 pages per story. Perfect "snippets." This looked like a good read and a good purchase for $3.00 ($14.95 retail), not that I needed another book, but I'm a sucker for "snippets" and a "good bargain."
The book opens with an Introduction by Andrei Cordescu, which the Author Biographies says is a Rumanian poet who lives in NO and edits "Exquisite Corpse: A Journal of Letters and Life" and is a commentator for National Public Radio. He sets the scene in the Introduction -- New Orleans, the city that dreams stories, stories from the Old Country, the city of ghosts and goblins, voodoo and witch doctors. "New Orleans is a small city but it seems spacious because it is always full of people . . . like a crowded Barron at night."
He tells the story of writers who come to visit and never leave, the story of Marie Laveau, voodoo queen buried in St. Louis Cemetary, and Anne Rice's vampire Lestat who lives in one of the tombs. F. Scott Fitzgerald wrote "This Side of Paradise, his first novel, in an apartment overlooking the cemetary. Get the picture?
In the first story, Anonymous lays down the 1699 ship's journal "The Exploration of Louisiana," a journey up the Mississippi River. In "The Movie Goer," Walker Percy tells of the stalking of William Holden through the coffee shops, gift shops and bakeries of New Orleans, a delightful story and my favorite of the book. "Growing Up in New Orleans," by Jazz trumpeteer Louis "Satchmo" Armstrong was equally as delightful and entertaining. On the other hand, I could not get through Anne Rice's description of Mardi Gras, "The Feast if All Saints," very heavy and ponderous. After about 4-5 pages, I gave up. William Faulkner's "Absalom, Absalom," written in 1936, was equally as difficult to get through. Others, well worth the read: Tennessee Williams' "A Streetcar Named Desire," Truman Capote's "Dazzle," Mark Twain's " Southern Sports," and Walt Whitman's "Three New Orleans Sketches." This book proved to be a bargain and I felt charmed and entertained. I will look for a hint if these authors on my next trip to New Orleans.
September 20, 2008
This book is not so much a collection of stories as it is an introduction to books about New Orleans. It's not that this is a bad thing, but if you are expecting a book of short stories about N.O., this is not it. These are all chapters from books by a wide variety of writers for whom N.O. has held special resonance, from Mark Twain to Truman Capote to Ann Rice. I have to say that as an introduction to New Orleans literature, it provides an excellent overview.
What has struck me most, considering the wide variety of writing styles is just how timeless these stories are. Unless there is a reference that places the events in a specific time period (i.e. slavery or going to a movie), most of these stories could take place anytime between 1820 and 1990. From these chapters, it's easy to imagine Rice's Christophe (from FEAST OF ALL SAINTS), Ellen Gilchrist's Tom Wilson (IN THE LAND OF DREAMY DREAMS), John James Audubon, and Walker Percy's Binx Bolling (THE MOVIEGOER) all sharing cafe au lait at the Cafe Du Monde. They would be scrupulously avoided by Toole's Ignatius Reilly (CONFEDERACY OF DUNCES) who doesnt wish to sully himself with such company. All this while a teenaged Louis Armstrong (GROWING UP IN NEW ORLEANS) plays for change.
All in all, this was a fascinating read.
What has struck me most, considering the wide variety of writing styles is just how timeless these stories are. Unless there is a reference that places the events in a specific time period (i.e. slavery or going to a movie), most of these stories could take place anytime between 1820 and 1990. From these chapters, it's easy to imagine Rice's Christophe (from FEAST OF ALL SAINTS), Ellen Gilchrist's Tom Wilson (IN THE LAND OF DREAMY DREAMS), John James Audubon, and Walker Percy's Binx Bolling (THE MOVIEGOER) all sharing cafe au lait at the Cafe Du Monde. They would be scrupulously avoided by Toole's Ignatius Reilly (CONFEDERACY OF DUNCES) who doesnt wish to sully himself with such company. All this while a teenaged Louis Armstrong (GROWING UP IN NEW ORLEANS) plays for change.
All in all, this was a fascinating read.
March 16, 2016
Like any collection there are high points and low points. Of particular note are the Louis Armstrong autobiography, the O'Toole, and the Whitman piece. I could have lived without the Exploration of Louisiana and Mason City. Overall this is a collection that is a fun literary trip through New Orleans history, but I don't think you get the full experience without a deep love for, and a pretty good knowledge of, the city. If I had one complaint it was the prevalence of ugly racial currents in a number of the stories. Those episodes in history certainly exist and are worth a mention, but the sheer number and the lack of other perspectives to balance them out seems inappropriate for a book that claims to represent the spirit of the city.
March 20, 2011
Nice primer for our upcoming visit to New Orleans, renewed my interest in Truman Capote and stimulated my interest in Ellen Gilchrist. There are many different ways these writers express their love of the Crescent City, Hope to visit the haunts of Faulkner & Tennessee Williams.
June 1, 2018
The book is a hodgepodge of short stories written in or about New Orleans. Different authors and vastly different styles. I particularly enjoyed the dialect used in many of them, remembering my childhood in New Orleans and how people expressed themselves. Some locutions I've not heard since I was a small child, but remembered.
April 16, 2012
I really enjoyed this collection, for the most part, but as someone who edited a few anthologies during my time as an editor at Penguin, I had a few quibbles. Overall, I was happy with the range represented here--particularly happy to see an excerpt from Louis Armstrong's fantastic autobiography here, as well as Ellen Gilchrist, who is a revelation. I also loved the historical documents included as well.
On the other hand, there were some pretty embarrassing copyediting errors that I guarantee were not in the original books (including one in the Confederacy of Dunces excerpt and the Robert Penn Warren excerpt). The other aspect I found a bit off-putting was the pervasiveness of the n-word in the selections here. Example: the excerpt from Robert Penn Warren's All the King's Men begins with, in my opinion, a rather purple description of the highway leading into Mason City. Embedded in that description is some rather embarrassing and, frankly, poorly written descriptions of black sharecroppers, including and complete with an attempt at dialect. Yes, this was the late forties. I'm not going to rail against RPW for writing this way. But I do think that the editor here, John Miller, could have used a bit of discretion. Including this excerpt from RPW was marginal--Mason City is not New Orleans, and the entire excerpt takes place there. But also, it's not really underscoring anything, which is what I'd imagine including this description might do, and as it does in other pieces in the book, especially Gilchrist's devastating "Rich." And having never read Anne Rice, I am glad to know that I should continue to avoid her work. Argh. Oh, and Carl Sandburg's description of Lincoln's trip down the Mississippi was a kick in the pants to read his biography of Lincoln.
On the other hand, there were some pretty embarrassing copyediting errors that I guarantee were not in the original books (including one in the Confederacy of Dunces excerpt and the Robert Penn Warren excerpt). The other aspect I found a bit off-putting was the pervasiveness of the n-word in the selections here. Example: the excerpt from Robert Penn Warren's All the King's Men begins with, in my opinion, a rather purple description of the highway leading into Mason City. Embedded in that description is some rather embarrassing and, frankly, poorly written descriptions of black sharecroppers, including and complete with an attempt at dialect. Yes, this was the late forties. I'm not going to rail against RPW for writing this way. But I do think that the editor here, John Miller, could have used a bit of discretion. Including this excerpt from RPW was marginal--Mason City is not New Orleans, and the entire excerpt takes place there. But also, it's not really underscoring anything, which is what I'd imagine including this description might do, and as it does in other pieces in the book, especially Gilchrist's devastating "Rich." And having never read Anne Rice, I am glad to know that I should continue to avoid her work. Argh. Oh, and Carl Sandburg's description of Lincoln's trip down the Mississippi was a kick in the pants to read his biography of Lincoln.
December 26, 2013
I am thoroughly enjoying this book so far! I too was expecting a collection of short stories about the city rather than excerpts of other books and stories in which the city is a back-drop, or a setting, or even a character. Nonetheless, this book has me researching authors whose works I haven't fully explored, and falling in love all over again with the ones I have. I am enjoying reading about familiar locations and when a familiar author is doing the writing, it's almost like running in to an old friend...a way cooler, much more interesting friend. Thus far, I have loved: Armstrong's "Growing Up", Capote's "Dazzle", and Thackeray's "Mississippi Bubble", which actually had me laughing out loud and re-reading it right after finishing!
August 13, 2014
This collection of 22 stories are either about New Orleans or take place there. Some are short stories, some are excerpts of novels and one is a list of superstitions and home remedies for everything from colic to tuberculosis. I loved Mark Twain's story about mule racing. Overall, it was a very diverse group of stories and perspectives of the Crescent City.
Food: gumbo, of course. Rich, full of yummy bites.
Food: gumbo, of course. Rich, full of yummy bites.
August 14, 2012
Terrific survey of NOLA tales & voices from 1699 to the present era. Esp loved a vignette by Mark Twain and Truman Capote's story "Dazzle". After reading excerpt from "Confederacy of Dunces" in it, I now have to read the whole thing. Captures a lot of the different flavors of the Crescent City.
August 1, 2012
This book was given to me by a dear friend to read upon recovering from knee surgery. I only had the attention span for short stories and I remember this one very fondly. I had a serious crush on the city of New Orleans....
January 9, 2011
Read this when we were visiting NOLA. Great intro to a great city.
January 9, 2011
some poor choices here but also some good ones. definitely not a good overview of New Orleans' writers but a decent enough quick read.
February 28, 2012
Used this in my English classes when we did a focus on New Orleans during the fall semester. Great variety of genres in this anthology.
February 14, 2016
Wonderful stories, about this city that has inspired so many writers!
June 17, 2015
Only about 1/4 of these are short stories; the rest are excerpts. I was hoping for more short stories. Need to find a lot of the books/plays the excerpts were taken from.
September 21, 2007
loved the louis armstrong excerpt...i def. want to go read more of that!
July 22, 2021
“There are certain cities and certain areas of certain cities where the official language is dreams. Venice is one. And Paris. North Beach in San Francisco. Wenceslaus Square in Prague. And New Orleans, the city that dreams stories. Writers come and eavesdrop and take some of those stories with them, but these are just a few drops from a Mississippi river of stories.”
Andrei Codrescu
Andrei Codrescu
October 7, 2024
Some are good but most stories are really unsatisfying. Either because they’re the first chapter of a story, or because they’re punishing and heavy. The amount that New Orleans factors into each of them is variable but usually low.
There’s also the baked-in racism and description of slavery horrors (also animal cruelty) you have to claw yourself out of these sinkholes to proceed with the stories, perhaps with increasing trepidation and nausea
There’s also the baked-in racism and description of slavery horrors (also animal cruelty) you have to claw yourself out of these sinkholes to proceed with the stories, perhaps with increasing trepidation and nausea
March 24, 2018
This collection of stories is very interesting. There is a good variety of authors and subject manner creating a vibrant picture of New Orleans.
December 19, 2019
fun read! My favorites were Zora Neale Hurston, Anne Rice, and Louis Armstrong
March 22, 2020
Anthologies...you win some, you lose some.
October 12, 2025
Great Writers on the City: A treasury of writers who capture New Orleans in all its glittering facets. Truman Capote, William Faulkner, Anne Rice, Tennessee Williams, Zora Neale Hurston, Ellen Gilchrist, Walker Percy, Mark Twain, Robert Penn Warren, Kate Chopin, Walt Whitman, Louis Armstrong and more including local accounts of spells and magic. It would be appropriate to read some selections on a French Quarter balcony as I got to do - or read it to feel like you are there.
Displaying 1 - 22 of 22 reviews