What do you think?
Rate this book
A.D.: New Orleans After the Deluge
Now in paperback, The New York Times best-selling graphic nonfiction masterpiece depicting the lives of seven New Orleanians before, during, and just after Hurricane Katrina.
A.D.: New Orleans After the Deluge is a masterful portrait of a city under siege. Cartoonist Josh Neufeld depicts seven extraordinary true stories of survival in the days leading up to and following Hurricane Katrina.
Here we meet Denise, a counselor and social worker, and a sixth-generation New Orleanian; "The Doctor," a proud fixture of the French Quarter; Abbas and Darnell, two friends who face the storm from Abbas' s family-run market; Kwame, a pastor's son just entering his senior year of high school; and the young couple Leo and Michelle, who both grew up in the city.
Each is forced to confront the same wrenching decision?whether to stay or to flee. As beautiful as it is poignant, A.D. presents a city in chaos and shines a bright, profoundly human light on the tragedies and triumphs that took place within it.
A.D.: New Orleans After the Deluge is a masterful portrait of a city under siege. Cartoonist Josh Neufeld depicts seven extraordinary true stories of survival in the days leading up to and following Hurricane Katrina.
Here we meet Denise, a counselor and social worker, and a sixth-generation New Orleanian; "The Doctor," a proud fixture of the French Quarter; Abbas and Darnell, two friends who face the storm from Abbas' s family-run market; Kwame, a pastor's son just entering his senior year of high school; and the young couple Leo and Michelle, who both grew up in the city.
Each is forced to confront the same wrenching decision?whether to stay or to flee. As beautiful as it is poignant, A.D. presents a city in chaos and shines a bright, profoundly human light on the tragedies and triumphs that took place within it.
208 pages, Paperback
First published August 18, 2009
31 people are currently reading
3375 people want to read
About the author
Josh Neufeld
37 books67 followersJosh Neufeld is a comics journalist known for his graphic narratives of political and social upheaval, told through the voices of witnesses. He is the writer/artist of the bestselling nonfiction graphic novel A.D.: New Orleans After the Deluge (Pantheon). In addition, he is the illustrator of the bestselling graphic nonfiction book The Influencing Machine: Brooke Gladstone on the Media (W.W. Norton). He was a 2013 Knight-Wallace fellow in journalism at the University of Michigan. Neufeld is a Xeric Award winner, and his work has been nominated for a number of other awards, including the Eisner and the Harvey. His books have been translated into numerous languages. Neufeld lives in Brooklyn, New York, with his wife, the writer Sari Wilson, and their daughter. To learn more, visit www.JoshComix.com.
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 30 of 496 reviews
February 5, 2017
I was working in a newsroom when Hurricane Katrina hit New Orleans in August 2005. I remember the ominous breaking news alerts that the levees had failed and the city was being flooded.
The stories and pictures from the city were grim — people drowned in their homes because the water rose so fast; others were stranded on rooftops, sometimes waiting days to be rescued. And thousands took shelter at the Louisiana Superdome, which quickly became overwhelmed by the humanity.
The book "A.D.: New Orleans After the Deluge" is an excellent graphic novel depicting what happened before and after the storm. The artist Josh Neufeld interviewed seven people who lived through Katrina, and the book is a collage of their memories. Neufeld had volunteered with the Red Cross in the Gulf Coast after the hurricane, and said he had been deeply affected by the experience. In the afterword, he wrote:
"I felt it was important to tell the story from the perspectives of a range of real people who had lived through the storm: well-off and poor, black and white, young and old, gay and straight, male and female. And I knew there were certain key experiences I had to document: evacuating the city, facing the flooding, being trapped at the Superdome or the Convention Center, and losing all your possessions."
The book opens with drawings of what New Orleans looked like before the hurricane. And even though I knew what happened, I still had a chill when I turned the page and saw the massive storm system as it moved toward the city. I turned another page and saw trees being toppled over, buildings torn apart, and streets being flooded. One panoramic view showed dozens of houses under water, and the devastation was unimaginable.
Next, we meet our seven narrators and see where they were a few days before the storm hit. We see a couple pack a few belongings and decide to evacuate; another thinks she will ride out the storm with her mother at a local hospital; and two men decide to camp out in their store to make sure it's protected. We also see what happens to a woman who ends up stranded at the Convention Center. All of them lived through Katrina, but they all experienced some kind of loss.
One woman told Neufeld that she felt she had "walked through hell and barely survived ... I think a big part of me was swept away in that hurricane."
This was a powerful graphic novel and I would highly recommend it. If you want to read more about what happened in New Orleans during Katrina, I also recommend the book "Five Days at Memorial" by Sheri Fink, which covers what happened at a hospital that flooded and lost power for several days.
Favorite Quote, from a doctor who helped hurricane victims:
"Of course I was very upset with FEMA [Federal Emergency Management Agency] and their handling of the whole thing ... They couldn't get the live people out in time, and they couldn't get the dead people out in time either. FEMA failed the living and the dead."
The stories and pictures from the city were grim — people drowned in their homes because the water rose so fast; others were stranded on rooftops, sometimes waiting days to be rescued. And thousands took shelter at the Louisiana Superdome, which quickly became overwhelmed by the humanity.
The book "A.D.: New Orleans After the Deluge" is an excellent graphic novel depicting what happened before and after the storm. The artist Josh Neufeld interviewed seven people who lived through Katrina, and the book is a collage of their memories. Neufeld had volunteered with the Red Cross in the Gulf Coast after the hurricane, and said he had been deeply affected by the experience. In the afterword, he wrote:
"I felt it was important to tell the story from the perspectives of a range of real people who had lived through the storm: well-off and poor, black and white, young and old, gay and straight, male and female. And I knew there were certain key experiences I had to document: evacuating the city, facing the flooding, being trapped at the Superdome or the Convention Center, and losing all your possessions."
The book opens with drawings of what New Orleans looked like before the hurricane. And even though I knew what happened, I still had a chill when I turned the page and saw the massive storm system as it moved toward the city. I turned another page and saw trees being toppled over, buildings torn apart, and streets being flooded. One panoramic view showed dozens of houses under water, and the devastation was unimaginable.
Next, we meet our seven narrators and see where they were a few days before the storm hit. We see a couple pack a few belongings and decide to evacuate; another thinks she will ride out the storm with her mother at a local hospital; and two men decide to camp out in their store to make sure it's protected. We also see what happens to a woman who ends up stranded at the Convention Center. All of them lived through Katrina, but they all experienced some kind of loss.
One woman told Neufeld that she felt she had "walked through hell and barely survived ... I think a big part of me was swept away in that hurricane."
This was a powerful graphic novel and I would highly recommend it. If you want to read more about what happened in New Orleans during Katrina, I also recommend the book "Five Days at Memorial" by Sheri Fink, which covers what happened at a hospital that flooded and lost power for several days.
Favorite Quote, from a doctor who helped hurricane victims:
"Of course I was very upset with FEMA [Federal Emergency Management Agency] and their handling of the whole thing ... They couldn't get the live people out in time, and they couldn't get the dead people out in time either. FEMA failed the living and the dead."
January 10, 2015
This powerful graphic novel interweaves the true stories of 7 separate people who survived Hurricane Katrina, beginning before the storm and continuing through the aftermath. Some searing moments, especially in the horrifying aftermath, hordes of people dumped at the Convention Center with no food or water, buses promised again and again that finally arrived only to drop off more people at the Convention Center instead of taking anyone away.
My only complaint is that I would've liked even more stories. I would've loved to know what happened on the bridge when shots were fired, forcing survivors back into the zone of destruction. I also would've liked to hear what happened at the Convention Center to all the rest of the survivors . The author, however, is true to his format. He tells the story of only these 7 people, but he does so well. There's integrity in that choice that earns my respect.
I hope after twenty or even thirty years works such as this one can keep the memory of those terrible days in New Orleans alive. It's best to remember so such mistakes aren't repeated. But aside from any social or political concerns, the stories interweaved in this book are gripping. I sat down and didn't rise until I'd read the whole thing. I highly recommend it - it's a quick, compelling read.
My only complaint is that I would've liked even more stories. I would've loved to know what happened on the bridge when shots were fired, forcing survivors back into the zone of destruction. I also would've liked to hear what happened at the Convention Center to all the rest of the survivors . The author, however, is true to his format. He tells the story of only these 7 people, but he does so well. There's integrity in that choice that earns my respect.
I hope after twenty or even thirty years works such as this one can keep the memory of those terrible days in New Orleans alive. It's best to remember so such mistakes aren't repeated. But aside from any social or political concerns, the stories interweaved in this book are gripping. I sat down and didn't rise until I'd read the whole thing. I highly recommend it - it's a quick, compelling read.
September 5, 2017
If you are interested in getting a visceral perspective from New Orleanians as the events associated with Hurricane Katrina were happening, this is a great starting point. A.D., short for “After the Deluge,” is a gripping graphic account. Josh Neufeld, who was one of the artists who worked with Harvey Pekar on
American Splendor
, demonstrates the power that drawings can have when accompanied by authentic dialogue.
I reread this as I watched the events of Hurricane Harvey in Texas and west Louisiana, which opened some wounds within me. We Americans like to rank things; this is better than that, this is far worse than that, this athlete of one generation is better than one of another. Some commentators and people affected by the rains of Harvey is “much worse that Katrina.” Absurd. Every disaster has its victims, and to try to claim that one person’s experiences are worse than those of one in another time or place seems to me useless at best and heartlessly cynical at worst. But it’s an American obsession. In coming months and years we will be inundated with statistics, costs, and facts comparing the two disasters as if it might lead to a profound conclusion. It won’t.
Here’s what I what I remembered as I read: often people underestimate the potential consequences of natural disasters; they think it can’t happen to them. No matter how much they think they are prepared, they never are. Poor people are always hit hardest and rich people will suffer, but they will recover and might even profit in the long run. Some people are more resilient than they ever would have imagined, others are far less so, no matter how much they had deluded themselves of their inner strength. It can be as hard or harder on people who have a connection to the places where natural disasters hit than those who experience it up close. And if you’re one of those, if you have a connection to the events, you’ll never be the same person that you were before they occurred.
I lived in New Orleans from my mid-teens through my early adulthood, moving away in 1991. I doubt many knew the geography of the city better than me. I understood what it was like in the parts of the city that were most affected and most spared even though I wasn’t there. As I was sitting at my computer—in late August and early September 2005, when video broadcasts on the internet were still fairly novel—more than a thousand miles from New Orleans, I experienced a feeling of emotional helplessness. I would much rather have been in the flooded city doing something. So to cope, I wrote an editorial on August 31 that was published on September 4 in my local newspaper:
A.D. reminded me of the emotional intensity of that period. But it’s also important to understand that this book is not a comprehensive historical analysis. The people portrayed do not yet have an understanding that what happened to them was a man-made disaster. While Katrina’s winds and rains absolutely devastated the Mississippi Gulf Coast and the adjacent areas in Louisiana and Alabama, they did not do so in New Orleans. The flooding and high death toll were the fault of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. Their neglect in planning, the poor construction of the levee system designed to protect the city, and the inability to mitigate their malfeasance was arguably the greatest dereliction of duty by a public agency in U.S. history, as an interactive video produced by the New Orleans Times-Picayune demonstrates.
The people in A.D. also don’t yet know that their city will never be same after the recovery efforts began. Many who were displaced didn’t return and an influx of new people came in who fundamentally changed the character and culture of the city. They didn’t yet know that predatory financial interests would come in to destroy the public school system by summarily firing 7,000 teachers only to replace it with a democratically unaccountable charter school system that prizes harsh, regimented discipline and profits over creative, vibrant, and accessible schools. They didn’t yet know that the city would undergo a long, painful path toward gentrification that would dramatically increase rents and limit available housing. Some will claim the city is better than it was before the Katrina-related disaster. I’m still not sure. But there’s no denying it is different.
In the past few days, a New Orleanian wrote an interesting article for the people impacted by Hurricane Harvey that is a warning about what they might expect and should guard against as they recover. It’s worth reading and it would have been a prescient warning to the people portrayed in A.D.
I reread this as I watched the events of Hurricane Harvey in Texas and west Louisiana, which opened some wounds within me. We Americans like to rank things; this is better than that, this is far worse than that, this athlete of one generation is better than one of another. Some commentators and people affected by the rains of Harvey is “much worse that Katrina.” Absurd. Every disaster has its victims, and to try to claim that one person’s experiences are worse than those of one in another time or place seems to me useless at best and heartlessly cynical at worst. But it’s an American obsession. In coming months and years we will be inundated with statistics, costs, and facts comparing the two disasters as if it might lead to a profound conclusion. It won’t.
Here’s what I what I remembered as I read: often people underestimate the potential consequences of natural disasters; they think it can’t happen to them. No matter how much they think they are prepared, they never are. Poor people are always hit hardest and rich people will suffer, but they will recover and might even profit in the long run. Some people are more resilient than they ever would have imagined, others are far less so, no matter how much they had deluded themselves of their inner strength. It can be as hard or harder on people who have a connection to the places where natural disasters hit than those who experience it up close. And if you’re one of those, if you have a connection to the events, you’ll never be the same person that you were before they occurred.
I lived in New Orleans from my mid-teens through my early adulthood, moving away in 1991. I doubt many knew the geography of the city better than me. I understood what it was like in the parts of the city that were most affected and most spared even though I wasn’t there. As I was sitting at my computer—in late August and early September 2005, when video broadcasts on the internet were still fairly novel—more than a thousand miles from New Orleans, I experienced a feeling of emotional helplessness. I would much rather have been in the flooded city doing something. So to cope, I wrote an editorial on August 31 that was published on September 4 in my local newspaper:
I wasn’t born in New Orleans, but I’m a native.
I graduated from high school and college and began my professional career there. Seeing the devastation, knowing intimately where events are happening and understanding the culture of the people of the area, the frustration of not being able to do anything for the people of my old hometown is a special kind of torture.
This was more than an unimaginable catastrophe; this was personal.
Watching Katrina roar through New Orleans and the gulf coast and its aftermath brings back the shock, horror, and disbelief we all felt on the morning of September 11, 2001. It is a downhill roller coaster of emotion for which no one can prepare. But we, the people and the nation, can not give in to hopelessness. That would be fatal to those most in need and our national character.
Victims of Katrina will need an unprecedented amount of public resolve and support—financial, logistical, emotional, and so many other ways we have not yet envisioned. We will have to prevent further damage—now. We will have to build not-so-temporary refugee camps for perhaps hundreds of thousands of people—now. We will have to feed, clothe, and provide minimal levels of health care to them—now. We will have to rebuild destroyed cities, towns and critical infrastructure—now.
Refugees from the region destroyed by Katrina will be spread throughout the nation. If they are lucky, they will be with family, friends and loved ones. They will have few if any papers normally needed to make claims for aid, they will have no work for the mid- to long-term, and most will have lost all their worldly possessions and mementos. And far too many will have paid the ultimate price with their lives.
Our nation’s response to Katrina must be massive, coordinated, consistent, and compassionate. We should not judge this tragedy by its worst human elements. The looters do not represent anything about the people from New Orleans and the gulf. They are, however, symbols of the overwhelming poverty in New Orleans. Their actions—which need to be punished harshly and cannot be ignored—should not diminish the obvious desperation in the area.
So what are some things we should do? As we give our donations to our churches, synagogues, and organizations such as the Red Cross to provide relief to the people devastated by Katrina, let us make sure efforts are focused and accountable. Let us carry that over to support as much federal engagement as is possible because that is where the most effective resources are.
Katrina’s refugees will be stressed and challenged in ways very few of us can imagine. Congressional offices throughout the nation should treat the refugees living in their states and districts as constituents and assist anyone who needs help through the federal system of disaster relief.
People should demand that their senators, representatives, and the Bush administration provide timely aid to make sure all federal resources are brought to bear to assist the people as a great nation should. Demand that they make recovery of this region among the highest of national priorities.
The national impact of this disaster—gas prices, insurance rates, rising prices due to energy costs—will continue to be felt in the months and years to come. If we do too little, too late now, we will likely have seen the beginning of the long, agonizing death of one of the world’s greatest cities played out right in front of our eyes. We can’t let that happen.
As Americans, we will have to do it for the selfish reason that the longer the negative effects of this disaster linger, the longer it will weaken our national economy. More succinctly, we will have to do all we can to save one of the few truly distinct American cultures—and if we don’t do it now, we may well have lost it forever. If that happens, our nation will have lost an irreplaceable part of our identity.
Lastly, I suggest we all read John Kennedy Toole’s A Confederacy of Dunces to help us laugh through our tears and to remind us of why, together, we must do all we can to make this tragedy a distant, bitter memory.
[For the ten year anniversary, the paper asked me to write another editorial.]
A.D. reminded me of the emotional intensity of that period. But it’s also important to understand that this book is not a comprehensive historical analysis. The people portrayed do not yet have an understanding that what happened to them was a man-made disaster. While Katrina’s winds and rains absolutely devastated the Mississippi Gulf Coast and the adjacent areas in Louisiana and Alabama, they did not do so in New Orleans. The flooding and high death toll were the fault of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. Their neglect in planning, the poor construction of the levee system designed to protect the city, and the inability to mitigate their malfeasance was arguably the greatest dereliction of duty by a public agency in U.S. history, as an interactive video produced by the New Orleans Times-Picayune demonstrates.
The people in A.D. also don’t yet know that their city will never be same after the recovery efforts began. Many who were displaced didn’t return and an influx of new people came in who fundamentally changed the character and culture of the city. They didn’t yet know that predatory financial interests would come in to destroy the public school system by summarily firing 7,000 teachers only to replace it with a democratically unaccountable charter school system that prizes harsh, regimented discipline and profits over creative, vibrant, and accessible schools. They didn’t yet know that the city would undergo a long, painful path toward gentrification that would dramatically increase rents and limit available housing. Some will claim the city is better than it was before the Katrina-related disaster. I’m still not sure. But there’s no denying it is different.
In the past few days, a New Orleanian wrote an interesting article for the people impacted by Hurricane Harvey that is a warning about what they might expect and should guard against as they recover. It’s worth reading and it would have been a prescient warning to the people portrayed in A.D.
July 19, 2012
This graphic novel follows the lives of a good cross section of people before, during, and after Hurricane Katrina.
The characters I found most interesting were Abbas, who along with his friend Darnell, decides to stay in the city to protect his convenience store from looters, Denise and her relatives who end up being shunted to the convention center, and a wealthy doctor who throws a "hurricane party" at his French Quarter home.
It's something of a nerve wracking read. You know bad things are gonna happen, and you're powerless to prevent it. There's a real feeling of unease, and I was most worried about Abbas and his asthmatic buddy as they bedded down for the night on a shed roof, where they were attacked by mosquitoes as rats floated by.
Tension was also mounting over at the convention center for Denise and her family. Thousands waited in vain for buses to take them elsewhere. Deprived of water and medical care, they watched as soldiers drove past, ignoring their cries. Salvation finally came in the form of looters who distributed stolen food and water from a nearby Rite Aid.
The author follows the residents as they return to their homes and view the devastation. He then checks back a year and a half later. Most of the group are rebuilding and attempting to deal with their losses. Only the wealthy doctor seems to believe that things have returned to normal. His only complaint? The shrimp at his favorite restaurant isn't as good as it used to be. He says, "They don't hand-shell them anymore. I can't tell you how many times I've had to send them back." The horror! Just how much misery can one man be made to suffer?
They say the Lord helps those who help themselves. When Katrina hit New Orleans, I guess that was the looters and the millionaires.
Everybody else was on their own.
The characters I found most interesting were Abbas, who along with his friend Darnell, decides to stay in the city to protect his convenience store from looters, Denise and her relatives who end up being shunted to the convention center, and a wealthy doctor who throws a "hurricane party" at his French Quarter home.
It's something of a nerve wracking read. You know bad things are gonna happen, and you're powerless to prevent it. There's a real feeling of unease, and I was most worried about Abbas and his asthmatic buddy as they bedded down for the night on a shed roof, where they were attacked by mosquitoes as rats floated by.
Tension was also mounting over at the convention center for Denise and her family. Thousands waited in vain for buses to take them elsewhere. Deprived of water and medical care, they watched as soldiers drove past, ignoring their cries. Salvation finally came in the form of looters who distributed stolen food and water from a nearby Rite Aid.
The author follows the residents as they return to their homes and view the devastation. He then checks back a year and a half later. Most of the group are rebuilding and attempting to deal with their losses. Only the wealthy doctor seems to believe that things have returned to normal. His only complaint? The shrimp at his favorite restaurant isn't as good as it used to be. He says, "They don't hand-shell them anymore. I can't tell you how many times I've had to send them back." The horror! Just how much misery can one man be made to suffer?
They say the Lord helps those who help themselves. When Katrina hit New Orleans, I guess that was the looters and the millionaires.
Everybody else was on their own.
May 23, 2011
What I said of Dark Rain: A New Orleans Story can be said of this book: Though its author "isn't from New Orleans, he got every non-fictional detail of the days immediately following the levee failures after Hurricane Katrina right, even down to the types of people who live in the section of N.O. he concentrated on. Amazingly accurate." Perhaps it's even more amazing in this book, since it is completely non-fictional, relating the experiences of seven real people who come from five different parts of the city. If getting the facts right doesn't seem like such a feat, all I have to do is remember the rumors, rush to judgment, false reporting and misunderstandings that occurred then.
December 18, 2016
One of the best books I have ever read about Hurricane Katrina - sad yet uplifting stories of loss and survival in a disaster compounded by indifference and lack of leadership at all levels of government.
August 11, 2013
#16 for Jugs & Capes!
Two spooky things happened surrounding the reading of this book. The first was that—completely by chance, I swear—we scheduled our bookclub meeting on the actual anniversary of Hurricane Katrina. The second was that the week before said meeting, New York had our very own super-mega-huge-ass hurricane… Well, that’s what we were led to believe was coming, anyhow, that Irene was howling toward us with her screaming rage, ready to visit upon our city destruction of a magnitude not glimpsed here in decades.
Leading up to hurricane weekend, I’d paid little attention to the hysterical Twittersphere and the bleating warnings of my out-of-state friends...that is, until it was announced that Mayor Bloomberg was taking the historically unprecedented step of closing the entire MTA—all subways, all busses, all trains, all weekend long. At that point I began to worry that I really might not be taking things seriously enough.
At that point, also, I was finally getting around to reading this book, reading about all the blasé, jaded New Orleanians who paid scant attention to the hysterical media and the bleating warnings of their out-of-state friends.
We all know what happened to them.
And you probably know what happened to me, too: I begrudgingly bought some water and an overpriced flashlight and a few cans of soup, it rained kinda hard for a few hours, my boyfriend and I rambled around our neighborhood finding the bars that had stayed open, the Gowanus Canal dribbled a teeny bit of toxic juice up over her banks, and everything was back to normal by Monday, in time for me to get to the Jugs & Capes meeting and talk about this book.
Do you want to know what I think about this book? The first thing I think is that the art is fantastic. (By this I mean the actual drawings, not the weird monochromatic patterning, which is not dissimilar to that of Asterios Polyp, except that there it enhanced the story and here it detracted and distracted.) The second thing I think is that there is so much pathos, so much devastation and misery and despair in the events related in this story, that it almost doesn’t even matter how it’s rendered, there will necessarily be parts that grab you, that make you gasp, that bring you to tears. I cried twice, maybe twice and a half.
That’s the good.
The bad is that Josh seems to have bitten off much more than he can chew. The idea of choosing five different people to follow through the storm and its aftermath was a good one, but it was way overly ambitious. To give all five different stories the space they deserve would have required five entire books. As it was, I was only able to connect emotionally with half of them, and the rest wound up coming across as two-dimensional stand-ins—the black kid, the hipster, the rich gay—thus essentially canceling their stories and their voices. Though the other two—a lower-income black woman and a Middle Eastern convenience store owner—were riveting and devastating and moving and harrowing, that wasn’t enough to carry the book.
It feels wrong to criticize such a worthwhile project, and I’m sorry. But while it was a great attempt, and must have taken an insane amount of work to do, it fell far short of its potential.
Two spooky things happened surrounding the reading of this book. The first was that—completely by chance, I swear—we scheduled our bookclub meeting on the actual anniversary of Hurricane Katrina. The second was that the week before said meeting, New York had our very own super-mega-huge-ass hurricane… Well, that’s what we were led to believe was coming, anyhow, that Irene was howling toward us with her screaming rage, ready to visit upon our city destruction of a magnitude not glimpsed here in decades.
Leading up to hurricane weekend, I’d paid little attention to the hysterical Twittersphere and the bleating warnings of my out-of-state friends...that is, until it was announced that Mayor Bloomberg was taking the historically unprecedented step of closing the entire MTA—all subways, all busses, all trains, all weekend long. At that point I began to worry that I really might not be taking things seriously enough.
At that point, also, I was finally getting around to reading this book, reading about all the blasé, jaded New Orleanians who paid scant attention to the hysterical media and the bleating warnings of their out-of-state friends.
We all know what happened to them.
And you probably know what happened to me, too: I begrudgingly bought some water and an overpriced flashlight and a few cans of soup, it rained kinda hard for a few hours, my boyfriend and I rambled around our neighborhood finding the bars that had stayed open, the Gowanus Canal dribbled a teeny bit of toxic juice up over her banks, and everything was back to normal by Monday, in time for me to get to the Jugs & Capes meeting and talk about this book.
Do you want to know what I think about this book? The first thing I think is that the art is fantastic. (By this I mean the actual drawings, not the weird monochromatic patterning, which is not dissimilar to that of Asterios Polyp, except that there it enhanced the story and here it detracted and distracted.) The second thing I think is that there is so much pathos, so much devastation and misery and despair in the events related in this story, that it almost doesn’t even matter how it’s rendered, there will necessarily be parts that grab you, that make you gasp, that bring you to tears. I cried twice, maybe twice and a half.
That’s the good.
The bad is that Josh seems to have bitten off much more than he can chew. The idea of choosing five different people to follow through the storm and its aftermath was a good one, but it was way overly ambitious. To give all five different stories the space they deserve would have required five entire books. As it was, I was only able to connect emotionally with half of them, and the rest wound up coming across as two-dimensional stand-ins—the black kid, the hipster, the rich gay—thus essentially canceling their stories and their voices. Though the other two—a lower-income black woman and a Middle Eastern convenience store owner—were riveting and devastating and moving and harrowing, that wasn’t enough to carry the book.
It feels wrong to criticize such a worthwhile project, and I’m sorry. But while it was a great attempt, and must have taken an insane amount of work to do, it fell far short of its potential.
July 22, 2011
I met Josh Neufeld when I bought this, I was just going to borrow a friend's copy but while talking to him I picked it up and had him sign it. He was there signing because this had just come out in paperback. It was at a comic shop, Crescent City Comics, that is in a different location after Katrina and still a great shop, if not better by now! One of the characters, Leo, works there now is a nice guy who is ready to talk to you about comics and everything when you go into the store. At the original location he was a frequent customer and then helped reopen when they found a new spot, makes sense he works there now. I'm not an expert on these matters, so I think my timeline is correct. Anyway, I always find it cool to read a book when you've met the author, but even more so when you've met, even if only while shopping, a character. I had to take a break after each section, but that just goes to show how well written. The illustrations and the colors had great impact and the dialogue felt very real. Sometimes it seems weird that I'd want to read something like this, it's not like we'll forget, but it's still comforting when you're done reading and you realize everything you still have.
December 9, 2012
"Look, tonight we can sleep on the tool shed. And then there's the roof. That's 14 feet. And if it gets real bad, we can hang onto the telephone pole. That's like 20 feet above ground." -Abbas
"How can this be happening? Don't the authorities know about us? DON'T THEY CARE?" -Denise
"Look at me. I've only got about $100 in my checking account. What if I didn't have a credit card? $100 ain't gonna buy much gas. What these idiots don't realize is that when the evacuations were called, it was only the 26th. If someone was waiting for a paycheck slated to come today--the first of the month--they weren't going to see it." -Leo
"They couldn't get the live people out in time, and they couldn't get the dead people out in time either. FEMA failed the living and the dead. But that's common knowledge now." -Doc Brobson
"I flew out to visit in January, about four or five months after the storm. The house was totally ruined. And my high school was closed for the year for repairs." -Kwame
Yes, I cried. They were tears born from frustration, anger, disgust, and sadness. But, in the end, these people and these stories left me feeling hopeful.
"How can this be happening? Don't the authorities know about us? DON'T THEY CARE?" -Denise
"Look at me. I've only got about $100 in my checking account. What if I didn't have a credit card? $100 ain't gonna buy much gas. What these idiots don't realize is that when the evacuations were called, it was only the 26th. If someone was waiting for a paycheck slated to come today--the first of the month--they weren't going to see it." -Leo
"They couldn't get the live people out in time, and they couldn't get the dead people out in time either. FEMA failed the living and the dead. But that's common knowledge now." -Doc Brobson
"I flew out to visit in January, about four or five months after the storm. The house was totally ruined. And my high school was closed for the year for repairs." -Kwame
Yes, I cried. They were tears born from frustration, anger, disgust, and sadness. But, in the end, these people and these stories left me feeling hopeful.
August 3, 2015
Just about ten years after the hurricane I am finally reading this book. It has been on my reading list for a while. Pretty much since it came out 6 years ago. I've read excerpts of it somewhere. Maybe in a "Best American Comics" anthology? I'm glad I read it and have this strange feeling that I know all the people in it, and I certainly care about what happens to them, which I suppose says something about the quality of the illustrating/writing.
I appreciated the documentary style of this book. I really believe comics can get to the emotional heart of a situation in ways no other form of representation can. And can do it in pretty quick strokes. This graphic documentary captures varying attitudes toward and experiences of the hurricane, from before the storm hits, to its furious but perhaps not as crushing as it could have been, approach, to the breaking of the levies, and the subsequent flood.
"After the Deluge" follows the experiences of particular people, and it also offers a picture of, on a larger scale, how difficult it was for many people to evacuate, for physical, emotional and financial reasons. I could feel the fear, desperation and misery of people stranded in New Orleans during and after the flood, in the gruesome heat with no food, no water, and no viable place to shit. It was an epic failure on the part of the government and I'm sure the experience has left scars that will last for a long time.
There were some moments when the dialog was a bit stilted and I'm not sure how I felt about the color scheme, though I really liked what one goodreads reviewer said, that by having the different color schemes it was like each character had their own sound-track. I found it to be a bit confusing, the color schemes, the transitions between and within the different sections. But all in all this is a solid, good, important book.
I appreciated the documentary style of this book. I really believe comics can get to the emotional heart of a situation in ways no other form of representation can. And can do it in pretty quick strokes. This graphic documentary captures varying attitudes toward and experiences of the hurricane, from before the storm hits, to its furious but perhaps not as crushing as it could have been, approach, to the breaking of the levies, and the subsequent flood.
"After the Deluge" follows the experiences of particular people, and it also offers a picture of, on a larger scale, how difficult it was for many people to evacuate, for physical, emotional and financial reasons. I could feel the fear, desperation and misery of people stranded in New Orleans during and after the flood, in the gruesome heat with no food, no water, and no viable place to shit. It was an epic failure on the part of the government and I'm sure the experience has left scars that will last for a long time.
There were some moments when the dialog was a bit stilted and I'm not sure how I felt about the color scheme, though I really liked what one goodreads reviewer said, that by having the different color schemes it was like each character had their own sound-track. I found it to be a bit confusing, the color schemes, the transitions between and within the different sections. But all in all this is a solid, good, important book.
February 1, 2020
Grafinis istorinis romanas (komiksas) apie tai kas vyko New Orleans uragano Katrina metu.
Ir baisiausia cia ne pats uraganas, o tai kaip JAV valdzia elgesi su gyventojais.
Lankiausi New Orleans 2015-iais (po 10-ies metu praejus uraganui) ir vaizdas nutolus nuo turistu lankomo French Quarter buvo baisus. Apgriuve, apire, apleisti namai...
Kam idomi si tema yra dar nebloga, nors ir kontraversiskai vertinama, biografine knyga "Zeiton" by Dave Eggers
December 6, 2025
“And now that I’m back, I feel better. More hopeful somehow. In spite of it all, even though the place will never be the same. But it’s not over. We’re not all home yet.”
heb dit weken uitgesteld om dan op 1 avond uit te lezen oeps
heb dit weken uitgesteld om dan op 1 avond uit te lezen oeps
April 30, 2025
So many accounts of Hurricane Katrina focus on the Bush Administration, FEMA, and Nagin. A.D. New Orleans: After the Deluge, however, does not. It’s a graphic worm’s eye view of the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. It focuses on seven individuals and their experiences. According to Josh Neufeld, “I felt it was important to tell the story from the perspectives of a range of real people who had lived through the storm: well-off and poor, black and white, young and old, gay and straight, male and female, those who evacuated and those who stayed behind, people who were greatly affected by the flooding and even some who weren’t.”
The story is told day-by-day as the storm approaches, the storm passes alongside the city, the levees break, and the floodwaters rise. The story is expressed in dichromatic panels that change color with every day.
10/10 art
10/10 storytelling
The soundtrack for this read was the discography of Dr. John.
The story is told day-by-day as the storm approaches, the storm passes alongside the city, the levees break, and the floodwaters rise. The story is expressed in dichromatic panels that change color with every day.
10/10 art
10/10 storytelling
The soundtrack for this read was the discography of Dr. John.
September 8, 2023
Indrukwekkend en bij wijlen hartverscheurend relaas van vijf inwoners van New Orleans tijdens de orkaan Katrina. De tv-beelden van de mensen in The Dome staan me nog bij. De graphic novel draagt bij aan de intensiteit van het verhaal en de soms licht absurdistische tekenstijl versterkt alleen maar de gruwelijke werkelijkheid.
December 24, 2010
The artwork was beautiful but, after reading Zeitoun and watching Treme along with Spike Lee's documentaries on Katrina, I'd already heard the majority of what is covered in this comic.
I wanted something that went deeper into the people's lives. This seemed to just skim the surface. There were a few good parts where each person's life and personality came through (especially with the comic book lover, its almost as if the creator could relate). I wanted a whole comic full of those moments, ending in a larger story.
Maybe this was a product of of A.D. being serialized online or maybe he tried to tell too many stories. It just left me wanting too much more.
(Shallow sidenote: I really hate the blurb on the back of the book that compares calling this a "comic" is akin to calling a "film" a "talkie." I really wish those people would stop justifying reading comics by insisting they aren't comics. You shouldn't call a webcomic a graphic novel just because you didn't want to enjoy reading it as much as you did.)
I wanted something that went deeper into the people's lives. This seemed to just skim the surface. There were a few good parts where each person's life and personality came through (especially with the comic book lover, its almost as if the creator could relate). I wanted a whole comic full of those moments, ending in a larger story.
Maybe this was a product of of A.D. being serialized online or maybe he tried to tell too many stories. It just left me wanting too much more.
(Shallow sidenote: I really hate the blurb on the back of the book that compares calling this a "comic" is akin to calling a "film" a "talkie." I really wish those people would stop justifying reading comics by insisting they aren't comics. You shouldn't call a webcomic a graphic novel just because you didn't want to enjoy reading it as much as you did.)
August 29, 2009
Wow--I started reading this book half an hour before the end of the work day (it was a slow work day), and I couldn't stop reading until the very end, an hour after everyone else went home. I was dimly aware of what was going on in New Orleans 4 years ago, but being from New England, where the worst we get are tropical storms, I really had little appreciation for how thoroughly a hurricane can tear at a city. More shocking is the latter 2/3 of the book, wherein we see first-hand accounts of how FEMA and the local government totally mucked up the rescue and evacuation of the Superdome and convention center. My immediate response to this graphic novel, as soon as I closed the book, was an inarticulate "Shiiiiiiiii--." In a perfect world, where everyone accepts comics as wholly-acceptable contributions to reportage and literature, A.D. will be held up as an early, true, and devastating account of New Oreleans after the deluge.
August 12, 2012
This was an excellent non-fiction account that followed seven people's experiences preparing for, during and after hurricane Katrina. Neufeld interviewed many survivors but settled on these seven to represent a wide range of experiences and perspectives, which he does with a keen, journalistic voice while telling their stories. He addresses the emotional impacts of the storm with grace as we share these people's love for their city, New Orleans. Neufeld uses color in a unique way by giving each section of the book a specific color tone, adding to the all-encompassing changes this storm caused for New Orleans (and so many other places) and America.
October 6, 2010
spoiler alert -
the city floods.
okay, I admit I knew that before I read the book but I hate to say I was embarrassed by things this book brought to my attention, things I hadn't considered before. Things that made sad and horrified and all that jazz.
I mean nature can suck and government can suck and that's nothing new but for whatever reason seeing it panel by panel while following specific people made it feel more real than a lot of other stuff I've seen. Maybe I need to watch the news more- ? But even t.v. seems t.v.-ish -so - ? blah, blah, blah,
I really liked this book.
the city floods.
okay, I admit I knew that before I read the book but I hate to say I was embarrassed by things this book brought to my attention, things I hadn't considered before. Things that made sad and horrified and all that jazz.
I mean nature can suck and government can suck and that's nothing new but for whatever reason seeing it panel by panel while following specific people made it feel more real than a lot of other stuff I've seen. Maybe I need to watch the news more- ? But even t.v. seems t.v.-ish -so - ? blah, blah, blah,
I really liked this book.
May 18, 2009
Tells the story of a handful of individuals prior to and after Hurricane Katrina hit New Orleans and the levees broke. No matter how many times these stories are told they still fill me with horror. The poor will always be with us and it seems we only pay lip service to caring about it. We need books like this that put a human face on such events and make us look at ourselves too. The graphic novel format really lends itself to this story and was well executed.
July 8, 2010
I read this in a day. However it is a graphic novel. But I could not put it down. I stayed up past my bedtime to finish the last 40 pages last night. A nice story. I actually didn't know much of what went on during Katrina so this gave a little bit of a perspective. It is an actually account from a few survivors who stayed instead of evacuating. Well there was one family who evacuated and told their side.
August 21, 2009
Really remarkable. Neufeld's a skilled craftsman who delivers seven diverse experiences of Katrina and its aftermath. All are well-told; in particular, Denise's story - especially the re-telling of her experiences at the Convention Center - clarifies what *actually* happened, with untold truths about how "looters" and "thugs" provided basic resources and needs when FEMA failed.
August 27, 2009
This was a really fantastic chronicle of a real-life event. Being in the midst of hurricane season now, this book reminds me that we are not safe from the force of nature. Great illustrations and interesting characters (based on real people, according to the author's note)make this a great book.
February 11, 2017
I thought this book effectively accomplished its goal: it showed a small cross-section of the horrors of life in and out of New Orleans right after Katrina. I think it's less important at this time than it will be in the future, when it can serve as a reminder long after the news footage has been forgotten.
That said, oh, wow, the use of color was atrocious. The illustrations are done in a single color at a time, and the colors alternate every few pages. At first I assumed each character had their own color to keep the 5 different plot lines easily distinguishable, but I was mistaken. The colors are unnecessarily garish and intense, and I felt like the artist was trying to give an adrenaline punch where none was needed.
The character development is fairly minimal in most cases, but the contrast between the different characters and their social stations is great enough that it almost does the job on its own. Of course, the characters are simply there to illustrate the tragedy of Katrina: the danger, the fear, the misery, the waiting.
While the book never directly makes accusations against the Bush administration or any government arm, it still features dialogue slanted in that direction that made the author's views of the situation pretty clear. I wish he had just come out and made it more obvious, because it comes off as clumsy as is.
Recommend to: 14+, general audience, anyone you think needs inspiration to buy flood insurance/flotation devices.
Don't recommend to: The migraine-prone - Those colors! Ouch!
That said, oh, wow, the use of color was atrocious. The illustrations are done in a single color at a time, and the colors alternate every few pages. At first I assumed each character had their own color to keep the 5 different plot lines easily distinguishable, but I was mistaken. The colors are unnecessarily garish and intense, and I felt like the artist was trying to give an adrenaline punch where none was needed.
The character development is fairly minimal in most cases, but the contrast between the different characters and their social stations is great enough that it almost does the job on its own. Of course, the characters are simply there to illustrate the tragedy of Katrina: the danger, the fear, the misery, the waiting.
While the book never directly makes accusations against the Bush administration or any government arm, it still features dialogue slanted in that direction that made the author's views of the situation pretty clear. I wish he had just come out and made it more obvious, because it comes off as clumsy as is.
Recommend to: 14+, general audience, anyone you think needs inspiration to buy flood insurance/flotation devices.
Don't recommend to: The migraine-prone - Those colors! Ouch!
September 11, 2009
I really liked this book. While I'm a fan of graphic novels, memoirs, etc., I don't usually pay much attention to the art, unless it's particularly outstanding. Well, the art here really stands out, particularly in the beginning, where we are presented with a view of the hurricane headed to New Orleans, and in the views of crowds, etc. in the Convention Center. Actually, the art is superb throughout.
My only criticism is that, while Neufeld chose five different stories of folks affected by the hurricane (to choose people of different races, classes, and experiences), I felt that the story of the minister's sonm, Kwame, who evacuated and later lived in Berkeley, and the story of the doctor who stayed in the French Quarter, were a bit weak. I was much more impressed with the stories of Abbas, the man who stayed behind to watch his store; Leo and Michelle, a comic book collector and his partner; and Denise, the woman who winds up with her family in the Convention Center. Particularly interesting is her take on the "looters," who basically kept people alive with much needed food and water.
I also did not understand how Denise's (or was it her mother's?) cat stayed alive, despite appearing to have broken a leg during the hurricane, and then been left while Denise attempted to evacuate.
My only criticism is that, while Neufeld chose five different stories of folks affected by the hurricane (to choose people of different races, classes, and experiences), I felt that the story of the minister's sonm, Kwame, who evacuated and later lived in Berkeley, and the story of the doctor who stayed in the French Quarter, were a bit weak. I was much more impressed with the stories of Abbas, the man who stayed behind to watch his store; Leo and Michelle, a comic book collector and his partner; and Denise, the woman who winds up with her family in the Convention Center. Particularly interesting is her take on the "looters," who basically kept people alive with much needed food and water.
I also did not understand how Denise's (or was it her mother's?) cat stayed alive, despite appearing to have broken a leg during the hurricane, and then been left while Denise attempted to evacuate.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
March 22, 2013
After Hurricane Katrina it was impossible to turn on the news without hearing about it, the devastation, the displacement, the deaths, and the conspiracy theories about the government intentionally targeting New Orleans. It is impossible to go into reading this book without a pre-conceived idea of what it will be. That being said, the author did a tremendous job of choosing subjects from different walks of life with different experiences. There is a doctor, a convenience store owner, a counselor, a minister's son, and a comic book collector. We live their experiences with them and then are privy to their conversations with the author about the aftermath of the hurricane.
The major flaw with this book is that it attempts to tackle a highly complex moment in time in a very short amount of space. There isn't enough here. Just as we're getting into the experience, that section cuts off and we're thrust forward in time. It is disorienting. Any lessons that might have been gleaned from the story are lost due to lack of development.
The major flaw with this book is that it attempts to tackle a highly complex moment in time in a very short amount of space. There isn't enough here. Just as we're getting into the experience, that section cuts off and we're thrust forward in time. It is disorienting. Any lessons that might have been gleaned from the story are lost due to lack of development.
December 31, 2015
Reading this made me feel like a snob because at every turn I was trying to ignore my suggestions of what would make this story much more powerful. This book is drawn decently well but overall the stories are shallow and predictable and I didn't feel all that much for any of the characters. The most heartbreaking parts just didn't sing like they could have if the author had spent more time providing meditative material for the reader. The dialogue was often clunky and... seemed inaccurate in places. Probably the worst part is how one dimensional and predictable all of the characters are. It's hard to a read book that falls as short of its goal as this one does. I keep wanting to cut it some slack but I think it's just sympathy kicking in because I feel guilty for disliking it so much. I think "well it could work well as a YA novel" but I think that this is just not written well enough on any level to deserve that kind of sympathetic thinking. Sigh. Sorry Neufeld.
September 6, 2009
I've read a good deal about Katrina and this book and it's simple telling of the stories of several New Orleans residents before, during and after Katrina is one of the best. It managed to find new ways to sadden and outrage me, in particular the story of Denise, who stayed and experienced the horror of the Convention Center. The artwork is powerful; the depictions of the scope of the widespread physical destruction are balanced with the emotions on the faces of the individuals who faced the destruction of their city. But amidst the devastation and loss, Neufeld infuses a good deal of the beautiful side of humanity.
December 6, 2015
This was beautiful comic (because of and in spite of the sad and disturbing subject matter). It was impossible to put down after I started reading it. I expected there to be a bit more of a through line or narrative here, but since it was just documenting things that really happened, I guess that was expecting too much.
September 16, 2025
I was hoping for a compelling graphic novel in the vein of the journalistic work, 5 Days at Memorial.
The art was certainly beautiful, but I wish it had been a deeper dive from a narrative standpoint.
This finished copy was provided by the publisher in exchange for a fair and honest review. Huge thanks to Pantheon for my review copy!
The art was certainly beautiful, but I wish it had been a deeper dive from a narrative standpoint.
This finished copy was provided by the publisher in exchange for a fair and honest review. Huge thanks to Pantheon for my review copy!
May 17, 2020
It is hard for me to rate a non-fiction series of stories concerning an event I lived through. Universally praised as a classic, I feel this might be more due to the subject matter. When a person earnestly writes about tragedy, particularly one that supports a certain worldview, they get extra points from reviewers.
First, there is a lot of good here. Neufeld is a gifted illustrator. His errors are few in terms of New Orleans details. I was very impressed with his drawings of various buildings that I have grown up around.
The mistakes though are many. I did not like the monotone colors, finding it more lazy than intriguing. The ensemble cast does not work simply because some people get vastly more attention. What was the point of the Doctor, who Neufeld alternates from calling the Doctor and Brobson? He is barely in it, does nothing, and suffers little. That might serve as a counterpoint to the other characters, but not even that really works, as his personality and world are not fleshed out. Same is true to a lesser degree with Kwame. Yet, that is the real flaw here. These characters, while well drawn (Neufeld has a gift with faces), rarely come across as people and even say some fairly awkward expository statements.
The real exception is Abbas and Darnell. This really is the book's heart and soul and to be blunt it would be a better book if it was just about these two. Unlike the Doctor and Kwame they are given enough space to become people. That said, Neufeld wanted Denise and Leo to be the heart and soul of the story. They work to a degree, with Leo getting the most empathy, which is no surprise. He is a hipster comic book nerd in a book written by a hipster comic book nerd for other hipster comic book nerds. Denise is a harder nut to crack. She is not particularly likeable or well fleshed out, but she goes through the most harrowing trials of the tale, serving as something of the book's social message about the abandonment of black people in New Orleans. Since the book was published in 2009, before the Great Awokening, the tale has a sense of pathos, anger, and desperation without the more ham-fisted theatrics that define these kinds of stories in 2020. In other words it works because it shows the pain of that moment without also making an indictment against "whiteness." It also helps that Denise could be funny, which I cannot say for anyone else in this book, or much of the woke "entertainment" we are force fed.
The politics of the book is less direct than one would see today. Naturally the authorities are incompetent or villainous, looting is mentioned but never addressed, and the tone is of a government that does not care and/or is not able to cope. On the latter I fully agree with the book. Yet, looting is often downplayed by those on the left, which is a major mistake. If one does not take that concern seriously (and seems to think the gangs did a lot of good during the storm), than you cannot understand why the Gretna PD turned away people at the Crescent City Connection. The reason was simple: Oakwood Mall was on fire and there was widespread looting in an area that saw no flooding. To let others over would have likely made the situation worse. In addition, order was only restored when the military arrived. The only people I know of who were universally praised at the time were the soldiers. This part of the story is not here and it is a shame. Then again do I ask too much? As somebody who lived through it I do. It is inevitable I guess.
It is a hard book to rate, one where I agree with some of its premises and find the characters vary from who cares to my god I hope you come out of this okay. As such, I consider this a decent work, but also a missed opportunity.
First, there is a lot of good here. Neufeld is a gifted illustrator. His errors are few in terms of New Orleans details. I was very impressed with his drawings of various buildings that I have grown up around.
The mistakes though are many. I did not like the monotone colors, finding it more lazy than intriguing. The ensemble cast does not work simply because some people get vastly more attention. What was the point of the Doctor, who Neufeld alternates from calling the Doctor and Brobson? He is barely in it, does nothing, and suffers little. That might serve as a counterpoint to the other characters, but not even that really works, as his personality and world are not fleshed out. Same is true to a lesser degree with Kwame. Yet, that is the real flaw here. These characters, while well drawn (Neufeld has a gift with faces), rarely come across as people and even say some fairly awkward expository statements.
The real exception is Abbas and Darnell. This really is the book's heart and soul and to be blunt it would be a better book if it was just about these two. Unlike the Doctor and Kwame they are given enough space to become people. That said, Neufeld wanted Denise and Leo to be the heart and soul of the story. They work to a degree, with Leo getting the most empathy, which is no surprise. He is a hipster comic book nerd in a book written by a hipster comic book nerd for other hipster comic book nerds. Denise is a harder nut to crack. She is not particularly likeable or well fleshed out, but she goes through the most harrowing trials of the tale, serving as something of the book's social message about the abandonment of black people in New Orleans. Since the book was published in 2009, before the Great Awokening, the tale has a sense of pathos, anger, and desperation without the more ham-fisted theatrics that define these kinds of stories in 2020. In other words it works because it shows the pain of that moment without also making an indictment against "whiteness." It also helps that Denise could be funny, which I cannot say for anyone else in this book, or much of the woke "entertainment" we are force fed.
The politics of the book is less direct than one would see today. Naturally the authorities are incompetent or villainous, looting is mentioned but never addressed, and the tone is of a government that does not care and/or is not able to cope. On the latter I fully agree with the book. Yet, looting is often downplayed by those on the left, which is a major mistake. If one does not take that concern seriously (and seems to think the gangs did a lot of good during the storm), than you cannot understand why the Gretna PD turned away people at the Crescent City Connection. The reason was simple: Oakwood Mall was on fire and there was widespread looting in an area that saw no flooding. To let others over would have likely made the situation worse. In addition, order was only restored when the military arrived. The only people I know of who were universally praised at the time were the soldiers. This part of the story is not here and it is a shame. Then again do I ask too much? As somebody who lived through it I do. It is inevitable I guess.
It is a hard book to rate, one where I agree with some of its premises and find the characters vary from who cares to my god I hope you come out of this okay. As such, I consider this a decent work, but also a missed opportunity.
Displaying 1 - 30 of 496 reviews