Review: Tom Piazza's "City of Refuge"

I have a review of Tom Piazza's new novel, City of Refuge, in today's Washington Post.

This was a weird review to write for a few reasons. First, Piazza based his characters on some pretty recognizable folks, one of whom I know and several of whom are pretty recognizable. (Tom himself I've met exactly once, many years ago.) Second: I was reading the book while evacuated for Hurricane Gustav, in the same city where several of the characters evacuated during Hurricane Katrina...on the third anniversary of Katrina. Not an experience I want to repeat again in any respect.

Anyway, it's a pretty good novel. I just wouldn't recommend reading it when you're evacuated from a hurricane.

Comments

[Michael H.]

Kevin,

Great review. I'm also in exile from Katrina, in the D.C. area. Your review has convinced me to go out and buy the book. Especially evocative is the next-to-last graf:

"But Craig and SJ, different as they are, have one thing in common: They're stuck in place, unable to move on from New Orleans, unable to move back. For them, Chicago and Houston are mental dislocations as much as physical ones. That feeling of rootlessness is the central theme of "City of Refuge," and for anyone whose life has been upended by natural disaster, the novel's sense of being out of place will resonate just as loudly as it did in 'Why New Orleans Matters.''"

Yeah, Kevin. It resonates - loudly.
Thanks,
Michael

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So is rural or urban life more sustainable? The question itself is probably misleading. Just as it is apparent that cities will have major difficulties in the coming years, it is also obvious that striking out for the wilderness on one’s own alone is naïve; very few people are actually able to be completely self-sufficient, even if they are able to tolerate living that way.

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This book is great for anyone who wants to open their mind and explore two different sides of a very tragic event. By offering glimpses into the lives of one family living in the Lower Ninth Ward and one living in uptown during Hurricane Katrina, it gives a better understanding of what really happened and what the response was truly like.
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a great book really a good one, for sure you can make more reviews about this author, and all the others books related with this, by the way, can you make a review about H.P Lovecraft? is my favorite author.

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