A friend was telling me about Chris Rose's book 1 Dead in Attic. I picked it last weekend, stated reading at Monday, and saw Rose at a reading/signing on Tuesday. I hadn't gotten very far in the book by Tuesday, but he was still entertaining.
I became aware of Chris Rose while I was in New Orleans for ALA in the summer of 2006. I read this column as we were packing up our crap to leave the city. It made me proud to be a librarian. ALA Annual can be the biggest pain the ass, but that year, Annual had a purpose.
At the reading on Tuesday there was a lot of talk about whether the city was coming back. Rose thinks it will. There was a woman with her daughter--they had left New Orleans, by choice. They decided it wasn't worth staying or trying. Other people said it wouldn't come back in their lifetime.
Honestly, I don't know if it will come back anytime soon. I hope it does. The rebuilding in both New Orleans and on the Mississippi coast continues. But Rose's book (I'm about half way through) gives a good view of what happened in that year and a half after Katrina. Refrigerator wars, depression, coping, drinking... It's all there. And it's a good book. So pick it up if you see it.
Also, he's a Wisconsin grad. While he was signing he asked everyone where they were from. He asked me--told him I'd been here for three-and-a-half years. Where were you before that, he asked. Wisconsin. That lead to: Get outta here. Where? Madison. Get outta here. I'm a UW grad, he said. No way, I said. Us UW grads, he said, we stick together. And my book is now marked with a small "Go Badgers" under his signature.
Awesome.
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