The Not a Book Club Club discussion

Discuss the story City Lazarus by Diana Rowland.

No spoiler tags required. Though it would be highly appreciated if you Uncheck Add to my Update Feed to avoid accidentally spoiling this for your good read friends.

Please do not discuss other stories in this thread.

Liked this one more than I expected to, fast paced and decent dialogue. The plot was enjoyable, but a bit predictable.

New Orleans isn't the same anymore when the Mississippi changed its course. This is the setting for a noir post-apocalyptic romance. We see a femme fatale love triangle between the corrupt police officer Danny, his rich "business"-partner and stripper Delia.

The setting and dialogues were good, characterization of Danny was great but the story lacked a bit and was predictable and not well-motivated.

3 stars for it.

Decent writing, very readable, and if the "twist" could be seen coming a mile away, at least it was well executed.

Certainly not my favorite story in the anthology, but also far from the worst.

The problem with a story like this being in a collection like this one the reader already assumes there is a 'Dangerous Woman' somewhere in the story. Therefore the twist fell short of being a surprise. As a story it was 'okay'.

Taking the story at face value the 'Dangerous Woman' is the femme fatale of it. But I would suggest that it may be the city itself that is the 'Dangerous Woman' here. Or the river even. I would say the city was as much, maybe even more, of a character than the characters themselves. And I wish the author had played with this theme a little more.

Nienna wrote: " city itself that is the 'Dangerous Woman' here. Or the river even."

That's an interesting thought! I had a more loose interpretation of what "dangerous" could man, e.g. not physically dangerous but just being strong minded. But I always attributed it to a female person.

Well, we call 'things' women too. And I have heard of cities being called 'she' before. Also rivers.

Nienna wrote: "Well, we call 'things' women too. And I have heard of cities being called 'she' before. Also rivers."

The Danube is female, the Rhine is male. What is the Missipi?

I can't find an answer but I'm going to assume male because I did find references for the song "Ol' Man River" (heard the term before but forgot about it).

The idea was interesting anyway. :)

As far as I can tell New Orleans was named for the French city Orleans which is considered feminine (has a la before the name).

I thought this one was at least ok - I like the close tie-in to current events.

I didn't like this one until the end. I was expecting the twist, but I still cheered when it came.