Elysium

by Sandra Russell Clark

More than 100,000 people visit New Orleans' cemeteries each year to see the arresting aboveground tombs. Sandra Russell Clark's photographs, however, offer a perspective unavailable to the naked eye: her luminous black-and-white duotones register atmosphere and time, as well as the solid substances of chiseled stone, sculpted marble, and wrought iron. Andrei Codrescu offers his poet's view of cemeteries generally and of his adopted hometown's in particular, confiding that he has used places of eternal rest as his private coffeehouses since he was a teen. Historian Patricia Brady follows with a fascinating discussion of New Orleans' distinctive burial practices and places over the past two hundred years. Evocative passages from writers including William Faulkner, Truman Capote, and Tennessee Williams enhance the progression of photographs. A listing of, and a map locating, the twenty cemeteries represented in the collection complete the volume.