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The Year Before The Flood: A Story Of New Orleans (2009)

by Ned Sublette(Favorite Author)

3.84 of 5 Votes: 5

ISBN

1556528248 (ISBN13: 9781556528248)

languge

English

genre

History & Biography

publisher

Chicago Review Press

review 1: I was blown away by the exceptional candor, voice, and righteousness of Ned Sublette. I haven't gotten over the political and governmental response, or lack there of, to Hurricane Katrina. My opinion of my own government had never been so low. I love New Orleans; it's a place with so much soul, and the variety of music and culture has always captured my imagination. It seemed the Bush admins were less than interested in saving drowning citizens. After the false pretenses that the former presidential administration used to engage our country in two unjust and draining wars abroad, and certainly after the four horsemen's lack of concern for or response to the Louisiana victims of Katrina, Sublette rightly asserts, "George W. Bush should have been removed from office." ... moreActually, you can't completely blame the Republicans either. "The Democrats chose not to confront Bush and his gang directly but to wait it out. It cost this country dearly. With no government to stop them, the doors were left wide open to the looters who ransacked the economy, culminating in the crash of "08." Still, who suffers the popular blame? The poor and working poor such as police and fire fighters, and teachers. Maybe we should have all been bankers, "Fuck taking a box of Pampers, steal fifty billion dollars." I'm including this quote, just 'cause it so truthful, and angry, and brilliant: "For their final act, the Bushists crashed not only the U.S. but the world, in a global economic Katrina. They didn't merely let it happen; they got up every morning for eight years, working hard to create the conditions for it to happen, packing slow dynamite around the levees of the world economy. For reasons of their own, they did to us what they did to New Orleans, leaving it to someone else to try to rebuild from the ruins." Ok, a final nod to Sublette's word and the inspiration that is the City that care forgot, Sublette asserts, "Second lines had never seemed more essential ... We exist, they said. We will not stop being ourselves. We will not give up our culture. We will not go into exile. We need a second line for this whole hurting country. But only New Orleans has it." Maybe it's time for a second line to occupy Wall Street.
review 2: THis book has some small sections that I liked, like the history of WWOZ, NOLA's radio station. However, on the whole, I hated it. The guy moves to NOLA at the same time I did, and lives on the same block I did, and manages to earn my loathing. I don't know if it was just an age thing, since I moved there in my mid-20s and he was middle-aged, but we were both New Yorkers and you'd think I'd appreciate his perspective. Instead, he said things like "I found myself calling my wife Boo" and I wanted to vomit. He had a bottle thrown at his feet and after that they never walked anywhere. Funny, I never had a problem during the day, or walking to Tip's at night. I think this big difference is that I'm always a little cautious, because I'm a woman, and as a white man in a black city, he was feeling that caution for the first time. Well buddy, welcome to the real world. I couldn't even finish the book, since the disgust got to be too much. He actually says he's glad his wife is eventually disenchanted with NOLA, because he'd never dream of actually living there, just a quick 10 month exploitive outsider view of new orleans is all he's after, them back to nyc. Skip it. less

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