New Orleans: Quirky characters, raucous music,
jazz funerals, a warm climate and plenty of service-industry jobs
made New Orleans an ideal base for writers and a rich backdrop for
their work.
But, 16 months after hurricane Katrina, the southern city that
inspired Mark Twain, Tennessee Williams, John Kennedy Toole and Anne
Rice risks losing its unique place on the literary landscape. The
city`s recovery is plodding and many writers remain in exile around
the United States.
``This applies not just to literature, but to music and all of
the art forms that owe something to the character of New Orleans --
they`re all going to be different,`` said John Biguenet, author and
English professor at Loyola University in New Orleans.
``When we talk about New Orleans culture, we`re not talking about
a place but a community. If the people who taught the next
generation to make the gumbo, to sing the songs and sew the costumes
for Mardi Gras don`t come back, that`s the end of that tradition.``
Novelists, poets and playwrights are struggling to save and
rebuild their scene in the city that was setting for classics like
Williams` ``Streetcar named Desire,`` and Toole`s ``A Confederacy of
Dunces`` and Rice`s popular ``Interview with the Vampire.``
Some have launched efforts to provide housing assistance and
other aid for basic survival so writers can chronicle disaster and
recovery in what previously was an affordable bohemia on the
Mississippi.
Six weeks after Katrina, Dave Brinks invited fellow poets to his
funky French quarter bar to read for about 250 people.
The ``still standing`` event at Gold Mine saloon went long into
the night despite a curfew, an early sign the storm did not wash
away the city`s love for the written word.
``We just closed the doors and let things keep going,`` Brinks,
39, said at the bar one recent morning. ``It was a beautiful
exposition of how everyone felt at that moment.``
At the event, he and his colleagues began work to locate more
than 200 writers evacuated to cities around the United States with
the aim of eventually bringing them back.
``We`ve got to get life back so the city can do what it does,``
said Brinks, whose own house on Canal Boulevard stewed in 8 feet of
dirty water after the storm.
He still hosts Thursday night readings. But the Gold Mine also
serves as a community center where his colleagues can get
information on medical and psychological help and other needs.
Housing squeeze
Relatively cheap housing in the city known as the big easy lured
those who could no longer afford sky-high rent in other literary
hotspots like New York and San Francisco.
But after the storm that flooded 80 percent of the city, homes
and jobs disappeared, problems that still threaten the recovery as
the population remains at half the pre-storm number.
Neighbourhoods popular with the artistic community, like the
French quarter, Faubourg Marigny and Bywater, did not flood. But
rents there have risen by 50 to 100 percent, said author Robert
Smallwood, who is also the executive director of the Louisiana Writers`
Foundation.
``If writers were scraping by with odd jobs, they can hardly make
it now,`` he said.
His foundation and habitat for humanity teamed up in an effort to
secure lots and build low-income housing to assist writers and their
families. It`s a similar plan to the musicians’ village begun by
Harry Connick Jr. and Branford Marsalis.
To raise funds, the foundation in November recreated Truman
Capote`s famous black-and-white ball, which was held at the Plaza
Hotel in New York in 1966. The 2006 version was in New Orleans, the
birthplace of the author of ``In coldblood.``
Non-fiction shifts to fiction
Katrina is an unavoidable touchstone for New Orleans writers as
they get back to their craft.
Since the disaster, it`s been largely a subject of non-fiction,
such as Douglas Brinkley`s tome ``The Great deluge: Hurricane
Katrina, New Orleans and The Mississippi Gulf Coast`` and ``The five
people you meet in hell: Surviving Katrina,`` Smallwood`s tale of
French quarter denizens who stayed put while most citizens evacuated.
Now, the storm and its aftermath are fodder for fiction, said
Biguenet, who lost 2,500 books when his home flooded.
``Rising Water,`` his play about a couple trapped in their attic
after Katrina who must make their way to their roof, has attracted
national attention.
Brinks` poetry is filled with explorations of life, family and
death post-Katrina.
``Only now are we returning to our creative writing to try to
comprehend what exactly has happened to us and our fellow New
Orleanians,`` said Biguenet, 57.
He describes his city as a cultural island in America that
managed to maintain its unique French, African, Spanish and
Caribbean character as well as its love of conversation. That
fostered its literary scene.
Said Smallwood, ``It`s important to save this, because this is
part of the soul of the whole country, to be able to have writers
and artists and poets exist and create and maintain our culture.``
Bureau Report