Review-The House on First Street-My New Orleans Story

I am a passionate lover of New Orleans. Since I moved to Georgia from there I've returned regularly as a visitor. I visit the city every chance I get and intend to return to live. The aftermath of Hurricane Katrina left me heartbroken. Since the storm, I have made several trips to the city and while I am heartened by some developments, the slow pace of recovery in the hardest hit areas such as The Lower Nine, New Orleans East and Lakeview is very hard to see. Still my love for this great city and its incredible culture is unmoved.

It seems everyone has a Katrina story...most are absolutely incredibly awful and yet there remains that undercurrent of grit and toughness. I've read several of these post-Katrina memoirs and so I reached for "The House on First Street-My New Orleans Story" by Julia Reed with this in mind.

The book opens by presenting the author's lifelong love of the city-recounting a trip made as a teenager with friends and the wild times had by all. Next up is a quick Fast forwarding to 1991 when the author moves into a French Quarter apartment on Bourbon Street when she is working as a reporter covering the governors race that year. So far so good. Not surprisingly, like so many others she falls in love with New Orleans and decides to remain in the city. After a number of years in the city, she remarries at 42 and the newlyweds buy their dream Greek Revival home at First and Chestnut streets in the Garden District.

At this point it becomes apparent that Julia Reed is very well-to-do. It would be fair not to hold this against her but it becomes extraordinarily difficult to endure when she goes on at great length about the ineptitude of her contractor handling the restoration of her mansion. She embarks on an endless parade of local celebrity name dropping and referencing meals eaten and alcohol consumed in fabulous restaurants such as Galatoire's. Family members saunter in and out of the story with little or no introduction only to be gone again before we ever get any context for their presence. The breezy storytelling and anecdotes are entertaining but in no way represent life for the vast majority of New Orleanians.

Enter Hurricane Katrina. I think surely this will get interesting. Evacuation and watching the ensuing flood on cable news is covered in great detail. After a few days, Julia bluffs her way back into the city with a press pass to find her house is 100% intact with no flooding. She suffered from one downed tree, a broken window and debris strewn about. This is a fairy tale ending for a homeowner in a storm that triggered the biggest man made disaster in the history of the United States.

Julia justifiably goes after the requisite local, state and federal officials for their ineptitude very briefly in the book. She is tediously self congratulatory about her many trips from Baton Rouge to bring food into the city for the National Guardsmen stationed in the post Katrina war zone. She deserves credit for her part in organizing the ReBirth New Orleans benefit but it still seems like arrogant self importance that drives her rather than true altruism.

The ever present descriptions of good food and wine did make me hungry for New Orleans cuisine... and a cohesive story. I felt like I was in the midst of a cocktail party in a room full of people I didn't know hearing bits and pieces of conversation and constantly found myself trying to make sense of it all. The conversational nature of the story telling and the short 200 page length made it an easy read but ultimately it felt unfulfilling. If you want a Katrina story to cheer about, read "The Good Pirates of the Forgotten Bayous" by Ken Wells.