One D.O.A., One on the Way

December 15, 2008
With a laconic voice and a despairing sense of humor, film location scout Eve Broussard narrates award-winning Robison's (Why Did I Ever
) grim yet witty novella about the dissolution of a family and a city in the wake of Hurricane Katrina. Eve and unstable-but-armed Petal are married to 42-year-old twins, Adam and Saunders, who—not unlike the two black swans forever circling the statue commemorating their sister's suicide—spin their nearly identical lives aimlessly: drinking, fretting over hepatitis C and hording cocaine in their parents' stately New Orleans mansion. This family's Big Easy is a world where lush excess and harsh deprivation work side-by-side to create a malaise sinister in its paralyzing appeal. Told in terse, numbered passages, Robison's narrative is jumpy but effective, interspersed with and informed by startling statistics (“More than 50 former NOPD officers are in prison, 2 on death row”). Distilled episodes of mistaken identity, marriage trouble and potential infidelity build to a crucial decision for Eve, who may be damned if she does, damned if she doesn't.

February 1, 2009
New Orleans was weird before Katrina. Add significant population loss, destruction, and bumbling relief efforts, and the situation becomes even more precarious. Robisons protagonist works as a location scout. She knows the ins and outs of New Orleansits buildings, alleys, and emotionsyet she says, New Orleans is full of meanings I havent learned. No matter how long a city has been home, parts remain elusive. Add to that a family falling apart and the horrid aftermath of Katrina, and Robisons New Orleans becomes utterly incomprehensible, perhaps unlivable. Within this incomprehensibility, Robison eloquently reveals the dissolution of a family. The struggles of post-Katrina New Orleans are ever present throughout the novel, but Robison shows that families can and do fall apart anywhere. The southern novels bread and butter are rich descriptions, thick as humidity and Spanish moss. Robison takes the opposite approach, relying on terse, efficient vignettes that, despite their brevity, achieve a similar effect: haunting images that crawl all over each other, leaving a mishmash of confusion and satisfaction.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2009, American Library Association.)