Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #688896 in Books
• Published on: 2008-07
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Hardcover
• 208 pages

Customer Reviews

The big easy
New Orleans is one of those great cities that is dripping with history, color, culture and a powerful personality all its own -- in most books set there, the city itself is the star.

Julia Reed appears to be fully aware of this, because her memoir "The House on First Street: My New Orleans Story" is practically a love letter to this city. While Reed pays a suitable amount of attention to what is going on in her own life, the main focus often seems to be on New Orleans -- its sensuality, its colorful and quirky populace, and the infamous Hurricane Katrina that devastated it.

Reed was acquainted with New Orleans as she grew up -- living up the Mississippi from it, her family visited often but considered it one of those places you visit rather than live.

Fast=forward many years. Working on-and-off in New Orleans during gubernatorial hubbub, journalist Reed found herself spending more time in the Big Easy than in her "home" of New York. The city's quirky inhabitants and steamy beauty ended up snaring her for good, putting an end to fifteen years of rootless journalism. When she married John Pearce, Reed found her dream home as well.

But even dream houses need some TLC if they happen to be rather elderly Garden District holmes, no matter how fragrant the flowers or lovely the surroundings. But the greatest blow came shortly after Reed and her hubby moved in -- New Orleans' inhabitants had to flee in the wake of Hurricane Katrina, which threatened to break the city's spirit as well as its homes and communities.

Half of "The House on First Street: My New Orleans Story" is devoted to the allure and eccentric charm of the Big Easy, and the other half is devoted to the devastation visited on the city in Katrina's wake. And Reed explores not just what happened in those tragic, sludgy days after Katrina, but also who was responsible and who failed to help out those who had lost everything.

But the most striking thing about this book is its atmosphere, which is entirely steamy, sensual and exciting. Reed's lush writing fills the pages with perfumed gardens that grow overnight, gorgeous old houses, gay bars, lost purses, tempting food and drunken trumpet players who call in the middle of the night. And she introduces a number of people -- past and present -- who are colorful, fun and quirky enough to almost seem like people out of a comic novel.

And Reed's journalistic talents kick in periodically as well. She not only outlines her experiences post-Katrina, but she peppers the book with various historical anecdotes -- for instance, New Orleans' earliest cottages got wiped out as well, because the founder refused to move to a less unstable area.

If there's a flaw with "The House on First Street: My New Orleans Story," it's that Reed seems to focus in relatively minor losses after Katrina. But this is a relatively minor flaw, because Reed's exuberant enthusiasm for her new life, new home, new husband and new surroundings suffuses the entire book -- her excitement and fondness practically float out of the book's pages.

"The House on First Street: My New Orleans Story" is more than a personal memoir -- it's an ode to New Orleans, and a journalist's exploration of its past, present and future. Definitely a pleasant read.