Why New Orleans Matters

by Tom Piazza

An impassioned plea for the meaning of New Orleans in American life–past, present, and future–at its moment of greatest peril.Award–winning novelist and cultural critic writer Tom Piazza is a longtime resident of New Orleans, and a celebrator of the music and culture of that city. In the wake of Hurricane Katrina, from a temporary outpost in Missouri, he began work immediately after the storm on this impassioned book–length essay on the storied past, imperiled present, and uncertain future of this great and most neglected of American cities. At its heart, it is a valentine to the people of New Orleans, and a plea on for their spiritual survival. "That spirit is in terrible jeopardy right now," he writes. "If it dies, something precious and profound will go out of the world forever. Maybe not entirely; maybe New Orleans people, black and white, will get together in exile every year and commemmorate their holidays and their spirit, Mardi Gras and jazzfest, red beans on Monday and barbecu