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 enlarge | Author: Julia Reed
Publisher: Ecco
Category: Book
List Price: $23.95
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Rating:  56 reviews
Sales Rank: 57867
Media: Hardcover
Edition: 1
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 208
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.8
Dimensions (in): 8.4 x 5.8 x 1
ISBN: 0061136646
Dewey Decimal Number: 917.63350463
EAN: 9780061136641
ASIN: 0061136646
Publication Date: July 1, 2008
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| Customer Reviews:
 New Orleans, Like it or not is a continuing tragedy in the midst of charm. August 28, 2008
4 out of 7 found this review helpful
In taking us from the comfort of observing yet one more upscale redo of a home and the ensuing 'perfect' life of the future occupants into the change of course Katrina forced upon every resident of New Orleans, Julia Reed exposes many of the shocking still kept secrets behind of the veil that has been dropped by the current administration over our collective memories about the horrific disaster and the even more appalling mismanagment of relief as perpetuated at every level of government in this country. The way people have found to survive, thrive, revive, and celebrate post-Apocalyptic New Orleans is touching, memorable, and a call to action. Julia's book is call to not forget Katrina, to not forget the underserved people in our land. Julia show us that they can be the poorest folks who are lost and also lost everything or the poor national guard who are doing their duty, living on the edge seeing horrific things daily, eating horrible rations, until Julia brings some real food and the touch of our common humanity to them, in their service to protect and help restore this iconic part of our country. Y'all read this inspiring book and then go forward to help lest we forget. It won't hurt if you commune to eat/cook/serve some good New Orleans food in the process! This is going to everyone on my gift list along with an invitation join me in action in New Orleans and in the myriad pockets of despair in this country. It is so nice and easy to take out your checkbook and to help folks far away, so very much harder to see and deal every day with what is right in front of you. So, mirror the grace and good humor of Juila Reed in her courageous coverage and restorative love: it won't hurt and it may be just what we need to save our wonderful country.
epicurean and heart-warming New Orleans memoir August 28, 2008
3 out of 7 found this review helpful
In contrast to many other reviewers, I found "The House on First Street" a very enjoyable, warm, entertaining and highly educational read. I know that these adjectives, for some people, should not apply to the book describing New Orleans before, during, and in the aftermath of Katrina, and therefore they do not approve of the style this book was written in. But for me, each event, however tragic, results in an explosion of creativity in many very different moods, which is always a good thing, because any work of art immortalizes the subject and makes it history (there are many comedies about World War II and Communism, for example, and they are appreciated even by the survivors - or maybe especially by them).
Julia Reed's memoir about her life in New Orleans, written in a brisk, magazine-style prose characteristic for a journalist, is a charming tribute to the Southern way of life. The epicurean (some would say hedonistic) descriptions of festive meals (I think it is remarkable, how she remembered or wrote down all the menus throughout the years), drinking in copious bars and pubs, parties, Mardi Gras parades, krewes, Carnival, unreasonable spending sprees, make the book a life-affirming proof of human nature. Even in the times so difficult as the post-Katrina year when life in New Orleans was as far from normal as could be, the city's inhabitants found a way to get back in style.
At the center of the story is Reed's house in the Garden District, and she concentrates on its purchase, history, renovation and visions of her future life there, meanwhile introducing many colorful characters and the portrait of the city. For me, whose knowledge of New Orleans and Louisiana history has been close to null, this book was a great introduction, especially that it provides a lot of references and (I hope) renders the spirit of the city and society in an easily approachable manner. The subject of tragic events caused by Katrina is introduced with a great dose of humor but solemn enough to give a grasp of their gravity, at the same time giving hope for New Orleans' future.
It is true that Reed's narrative can be perceived as infinitely snobbish (intended, I assume) and it took me a while to get used to her way of telling the story, also I was sometimes annoyed by her overuse of certain phrases (like "a tad"), but I read her book with pleasure and can recommend it as a good summer read for those who want something light, but more informative and serious than romance novels or detective stories.
A New Orleans Story August 25, 2008
9 out of 11 found this review helpful
This book is a memoir of building a life in New Orleans. Reed grew up in Mississippi, but found herself most at home in New Orleans. Even while writing for Vogue Magazine in New York, she kept an apartment in New Orleans. In 2002, she married a man she had met in New Orleans, and they began seeking a house to start their new life together. They purchased an old house in the French Quarter of the city and began renovating it. In August 2004, they finally moved into their house, just days before Hurricane Katrina devastated the region. In this book, Reed relates her ties to the city and her home, and she narrates her personal hurricane survival story, describing how she and her friends made their escape, and how they returned to the city after the hurricane and set about rebuilding their lives there.
Reed presents her story at a leisurely pace, pausing to reveal details of the personal lives of her friends, family, and employees. Anyone who has ever hired a contractor for house renovations will recognize some of the types who she brought in to work on her house--certainly her renovation story is one of run-of-the-mill incompetence and bad luck. What makes her story stand out among the reno literature, however, is its setting in New Orleans at the time of Hurricane Katrina. Reed must not only deal with shysters who can't wield a hammer, but also with conditions of near anarchy. Her story provides a glimpse into how the more upscale residents and restaurateurs of New Orleans survived the disaster, and why they were so determined to return.
Utterly Charming Writing August 25, 2008
6 out of 10 found this review helpful
Julia Reed's book is the third nonfiction account I have read of Hurricane Katrina and its aftermath-- actually I could not finish Douglas Brinkley's THE GREAT DELUGE-- and certainly the most upbeat. After all her house only suffered a broken window from the storm. Like all good writers-- and that she certainly is-- she has the good sense to write about that which she knows, and should not be castigated because she has a beautiful house with what seems to be unlimited funds to restore a mansion to its former elegance. Ms. Reed writes with verve and humor about her neighbors, friends, employees and family and draws indelible pictures of them. She apparently has the uncanny ability to hire contractors, carpenters, plumbers et cetera whose only skill is running their tab up. Surely her contractor Eddie should be either sued, jailed or run out of town. Ms. Reed obviously cares deeply for her on-again-off-again-the-wagon helper Antoine. I liked tremendously her parents who live in Greenville, Mississippi, where Ms. Reed grew up, particularly her mother who insists on peeling tomatoes. I did not know that anyone on earth peeled fresh tomatoes but my own grandmother.
Ms. Reed moved to New Orleans in 1991 to cover a gubernatorial campaign and to spend time with a man she identifies only as "A" and, as do many persons, found she could not stay away for long, eventually married an attorney and bought the house of her dreams in the Garden District, previously owned by a relative of Walker Percy, and across the street from where Anne Rice lived for many years, before she moved to California and apparently began writing books about Jesus rather than vampires, just weeks before Hurricane Katrina struck. Ms. Reed, as does everyone else who has written about what she describes as the "biggest man-made disaster in the country's history" has nothing good to say about the president, the governor or the mayor. I didn't know that the mayor had said that Katrina was "divine providence for going to war in Iraq as well as the black-on-black crime rate that had for so long afflicted the city." (At least he didn't, like Evangelist Franklin Graham, blame Katrina on the rampant sins of the French Quarter. Never mind that the Quarter was left pretty much unscathed by the storm.) Reed's criticism of the Governor of Louisiana is worth quoting: "Then there was the question of what on earth had made the majority of Louisiana's electorate vote for Kathleen Blanco, who had not yet managed to call out the National Guard, and who appeared on the screen far too often, patting her hair and asking everyone to pray. A one point, the governor angrily told a reporter she had no idea what day it was, so I did pray--that she would cease to go near a television camera for the duration of the crisis." Reed contrasts the inepitude of elected officials with the courage and bravery of local citizens as well as people from all over the country who came to help including members of the New York Fire Department, all of whom were veterans of 9/11 and the 700 Oklahoma National Guard troops for whom Ms. Reed ordered and paid for from Podnuh's in Baton Rouge brisket and ribs and pulled pork, along with baked beans, potato salad and cole slaw. Like all Southerners, she understands that you eat your way through grief and tragedy and admits to gaining weight, known as the "Katrina Fifteen." At one point she says that the chefs, many of whom never left New Orleans and re-opened their restaurants almost immediately with only skeleton staffs "saved us." Ms. Reed seems to know where to find anything that has to do with food and/or drink in New Orleans including the best Bloody Mary, Cane River Country Shrimp, Alice B. Toklas's Cream Perfect Love et cetera.
THE HOUSE ON FIRST STREET is about what the title says it is: one writer's account of her love of that house and of the City of New Orleans, her adopted city, and how lucky she is, compared to other residents of that city. "And yes, a catastrophic hurricane had hit the city I'd finally chosen to live in amost immediately afterward, but it had all but spared our little patch on First Street--Eddie and crew, as we would continually find out, caused us a lot more damage than Katrina. Then there was our drive-through with the Guard, which had reinforced the notion that figuratively speaking, we were definitely eating cake. So it was in that spirit that we headed off to eat the real thing [to celebrate Reed's birthday] with my cousins whom I dearly loved and never saw enough of and who really believed. . . that our being together was an unexpected blessing of the storm."
If you can forgive the writer for not being Mother Teresa, then you will be both delighted and often moved by this book.
 Katrina whirlwind of people and food names, with home renovation and some politics thrown in. August 25, 2008
11 out of 14 found this review helpful
Like the author, Julia, I was also a non-native who had moved to New Orleans, having gotten my first job out of college there and living in New Orleans from 1987 to 1996. Even after I moved from New Orleans in 1996, I had never thought of reading books about New Orleans (not counting New Orleans and Cajun cookbooks, of course) until now, three years after Hurricane Katrina. Plenty of my New Orleans friends' and former co-workers' lives were indelibly altered by Katrina. To this day, a number of friends and businesses that I have known during my years in New Orleans no longer reside there. I have not yet been back to New Orleans since Katrina, but I am planning a trip there next year. So I was very enthusiastic about reading Julia's memoirs on both the pre- and post-Katrina years since we both lived in that city amidst the bizarre "Vote for the Crook. It's Important" bumper stickers during the re-election of former Louisiana governor Edwin Edwards.
I would rate the first four chapters of the book 5 stars; her writing conveys very well the quirks and eccentricities of the city, how she met her husband, and sets the stage for the fixer-upper house that they proceed to repair and renovate. Her experiences in seeing the post-Katrina damage, noting all of the "looters will be shot" signs, and helping to feed the Oklahoma National Guard gets 4 stars, as does her coverage of the re-election of Edwin Edwards as governor and discussion of Louisiana politics.
However, the 1991 governor's race between Edwin Edwards and ex-Klansman David Duke is discussed in chapter 12, inserted after the bulk of her chapters about the 2005 Katrina hurricane, before she veers back into talking about eating more food in chapter 13 with her post-Katrina return back to her house. This haphazard discontinuous chronology of events serves no purpose, and there are many herky-jerky switches of timing and location that disrupt the pacing of the entire book. The chapter 12 discussion of the 1991 governor election really should have been placed after chapter 4, before the onset of Katrina, instead of being abruptly inserted in the middle of her post-Katrina experiences.
As much as Julia frequently mentioned her "friend JoAnn Clevenger's Upperline" restaurant in New Orleans, there were a plethora of other iconic New Orleans restaurants that were never mentioned. Having myself lived in New Orleans for almost ten years, the music there was just as important and memorable as the food. New Orleans music landmarks like Tipitina's (which is no farther from her house than Upperline restaurant) and Mid-City Lanes Rock 'n Bowl (yes, great live music with bowling) are never mentioned in the book. Although the above-ground cemeteries are a major tourist attraction and also worthy of visits by the locals because of the beauty of their statues and mausoleums, and the history and stories behind many of the dead, this is never covered in the book.
In my personal, very subjective, opinion, the persona and tone of voice that is carried throughout Julia's entire book can best be summed up in the wording that she uses at the end of chapter 8 after she finds out that, except for one broken window and some tree damage, her house was spared by Hurricane Katrina, "We are bragging on our luck, boasting of our stamina..." In the wake of one of the country's worst disasters, I find it quite inappropriate to brag about one's "luck" that her house, life, and livelihood were not affected by Hurricane Katrina in the same way that one should not brag that they were lucky a tornado hit someone else's house instead of theirs, or that an earthquake damaged some other part of the city instead of theirs. At times, there is an air of snootiness and snobbery that reminds me of Marie Antoinette and Leona Helmsley. All of her friends and favorite restaurants were also spared by the hurricane, and her life mostly went on as usual for her after the hurricane except for a few minor inconveniences. My favorite Irish pub in New Orleans, O'Flaherty's Irish Channel in the French Quarter, has now been forever closed, one of the many losses and permanent relocations that I have seen after Katrina. Much of chapter 9 read like an odd mix of gratuitous post-Katrina observations mixed in with ongoing talk about lovely houses and favorite restaurants. I would have the same queasy feeling if someone visited a city torn apart by an earthquake or tornado and commented about her favorite restaurants within the same chapter.
In a similar vain vein, Julia's mention of her "boasting of our stamina" never connected with me in logic. She left town and stayed at her parents' house in Greenville, MS before the hurricane and returned to find that nearly all of her pre-Katrina life was still intact. Far more post-Katrina residents of New Orleans have exhibited far more thankfulness and stamina after having lost homes and businesses. To me, "stamina" in life is not yelling at your contractor "If you come over here, I swear to God, I will kill you". "Stamina" is not removing the paint contractor's sign from her iron fence, throwing it in the middle of First Street, and stomping on it repeatedly. During her post-Katrina first night back to see her house on First Street, she decided that it was "too hot" and "too dark" to stay there for the night and decided to head to Baton Rouge instead; this also is not "stamina". Overall, her only personal experience with flooding in the entire book was when her "sink backed up and almost a foot of water came flooding into the kitchen", due to the result of incompetent plumbing and not due to the hurricane; this was Julia's own "flood" in a city filled with people with far greater flood damage.
But, by far, the main reason why I rate this book only 3 stars is that it was very badly edited and just does not read very well in its quick 201-page length. It reminds me of someone who is quickly recounting her memories to her friends during a Girls' Night Out get-together, with lots of people and food names mentioned, but hardly any details provided: "And then we ate boudin, and later ate remoulade, my friend JoAnn Clevenger owns Upperline restaurant, my buddy Tenney Flynn owns ZydeQue, Jason is now a philosophy professor in St. Louis, oh by the way did I mention that I ate at Upperline yet again, etc, etc, etc..." Why would these recollections happen during a Girl's Night Out? Because while her husband, John, makes brief cameo appearances throughout the book, I also never get to know him either. One week after having finished reading this book, handyman Antoine and contractor Eddie are the only two people that actually feel human from her writings. Many of the other names of people and all of the food eaten are just one long blurry melange of names. FEMA and the governor Kathleen Blanco are cast in a deservedly bad light, but the mayor of New Orleans, for some very odd reason, is always mysteriously just referred to as "the mayor" and never by name (what is up with that?).
While I do not expect a memoir to only have emotional impact if the person has experienced great personal setbacks, failures, triumphs, and victories, from my very personal experiences hearing about what former friends and co-workers lost after Katrina, it was hard to relate to Julia's "New Orleans Story" since I certainly felt that it was only representative of a small part of New Orleans, the socioeconomic minority of the New Orleans population that reads Vogue and Town & Country magazines, gets the Neiman Marcus Christmas catalogue in the mail every year, and shops and dines at upscale establishments.
With a dearth of details to flesh out the people mentioned in the book and the fact that many people outside of Louisiana may not know what boudin and remoulade are, the book also could have used photos as accompaniment. The seemingly hastily written book that appeared to be totally lacking in editing could have used photos of her house, her home renovation work, her meals, and her Katrina experiences. On a sentence-by-sentence basis, the book is well written; Julia can write and she can sprinkle bits of humor in her stories. But the paragraphs and chapters just jump all over the place without fleshing out the details along the way, especially in regards to the rampant mentioning of food.
For a FAR MORE ENJOYABLE foodie tribute to the cuisine of New Orleans, I would heartily recommend that you read the book Gumbo Tales: Finding My Place at the New Orleans Table In contrast to this book, the "Gumbo Tales" book is extremely well-written, and primarily focuses on New Orleans food, with some observations of the city before and after Katrina, but without jumping all over the place with constantly impatient gripes and anger management issues involving one's home renovation experiences.
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