Nine Lives: Mystery, Magic, Death, and Life in New Orleans Paperback – February 16, 2010

I wanted to read the book before having a personal visit with one of the "interview-ees" in the book. It was FANTASTIC. I have done alot of volunteeer time in the Lower 9th, both before, and after Katrina. This was a beautiful, stellar, could not wait to digest every word sort of book. Engaging, sharp, and forward-moving. It perfectly places you into that miasma of beauty, culture, uniqueness, and love/pain/sorrow/joy that it is, to be there, from there. I have re-read it ten times. It is in my top three of "go-to" books because, as a volunteer there, it speaks, and resonates on such a depp level. Dan Baum did an absolutely stellar job capturing time and place. A great read, and it tells the deep abiding love of place, sorrow of place, and redemption and abiding love of place. I absolutely loved every word , and highly recommend!

A doctor turned coroner, a band and music teacher, a transit system worker, an ambitious woman struggling to achieve a college education, a transexual bar owner and former college football player, a wealthy accountant... These are among the characters whose very disparate lives are woven together in this book that is about all of them and none of them; rather, it is about the city that they share, New Orleans."New Orleanians really want nothing more than for everything to stay the same," Dan Baum writes in his introduction to this compelling oral history of the city's misadventures over the last forty-plus years. As well all know, far from staying the same, everything in New Orleans underwent a seismic change in 2005, when Hurricane Katrina blew in from the Gulf of Mexico and along with the floods that followed, transformed the city's geography in every conceivable way. Its citizens were scattered all over the country, the lower Ninth Ward -- home to some of those whom Baum profiles in his book -- was destroyed.While Katrina's devastation is the raison d'etre for Baum's book, the events of those horrible days in August and September, 2005 are simply the climax of the lives of the New Orleanians he tells the story through. Or perhaps I should say that his nine characters choose him to tell their tales of the lives they lived in the city that they loved and sometimes hated but couldn't imagine living without. It's the story of a city and of the many ways of life that coexisted within it, of the unique 'live for the day' ethos that prevailed there and its strong sense of community.Once past the introduction, the reader never hears Baum's authorial voice again; each step in the evolution of New Orleans from the cleanup after the devastation of Hurricane Betsy in 1965 to the last thoughts about Katrina's legacy decades later is seen through the eyes of one of the people he profiles. We see Wil Rawlins struggle to rescue some of the parentless children growing up in the city's housing projects by introducing them to the wonders of New Orleans's musical traditions -- in particular the high school marching band. Ronald Lewis battles for equal pay for the (African American) men who repair the St. Charles streetcar line; Joyce Montana watches her husband transform the African American Mardi Gras traditions. Meanwhile, 'uptown', accountant Billy Grace faces his own battles, such as the scornful attitude the city's elite has for his efforts to build a business and create wealth of his own.The result is something that only the strongest of writers and journalists could produce. The deeply personal narratives -- small chapters, each revolving around events, small and large, in the life of one of Baum's characters -- are interwoven to the extent that events in their lives dictate. But Baum never makes the mistake of trying to develop some kind of master narrative to which his characters' lives become subordinated. Instead, they speak for themselves. It reads as if Baum has been living alongside them for the last 30 or 40 years, privy to all their triumphs and tragedies as they happen. Oral history is a tricky format to work within: the risk is that the book starts sounding like nothing more than a straightforward Q&A between subject and author. In this case, Baum has produced something remarkable; a work in which the author steps to the background and lets those profiled tell of their own lives, in their own way, without judgment or comment. We are part of the moment on the high school gridiron when band teacher Rawlins sees his motley crew of surly students playing dented instruments, get carried away by the music. "Every rest was crisp, every beat precise. Some of them had their eyes closed. All of them were lost, utterly lost, in the music."Similarly, the reader is able to get completely lost in Baum's writing and the power of the story he is telling. Long before Katrina blows into the nine lives he profiles, you find it impossible to put this book down. And when the hurricane arrives, it's as if it is happening to people you know and love. Even then, Baum avoids the tried and true images and creates new ones that are able to jolt the reader back into seeing the horror with fresh eyes. Writing about coroner Frank Minyard's decision to ride out the storm, Baum tells of the doctor looking out a window to see his "big black bull and donkey (walk) calmly up the road together through the driving rain. He realized that they were evacuating, as he should have done. Now the roads were impassable." When the storm ends, Minyard heads for the coroner's office. Hitting the flooded area, he carefully saves his ostrich-skin cowboy boots -- then swims his way to work.It's impossible to do justice to this book in a review. Equally, the lives of those who Baum writes about -- and in particular Rawlins and his crusade to save the children that no one else cares about -- deserve the widest possible readership. This may be the best book purchase that you make all year.

I first stumbled on this book when I was in New Orleans last May for work and it piqued my curiosity. I didn't get around to reading it until I remember it was on my Kindle during Mardi Gras. What a poignant read. Baum featured nine New Orleanians, mostly Lower Ninth denizens.From Tootie Montana and Billy Grace who were Mardi Gras fixtures and Ronald Lewis who lived through Betsy to Wil Rawlins who was still trying to live up to his father's name and JoAnn Guidos who was trying to use her bar as an anchor for the nonbinary and transgender communities much as New Orleans nightlife did for her.These are 9 of many New Orleans stories, and while the book shows the effects Katrina had on their lives, it also spends chapters setting them up so we feel for them as three dimensional people, not just Katrina victims. An excellent read

Good book

This book reminded me a bit of Thornton Wilder's novella Bridge of San Luis Rey, which compassionately explores the backstories of the passengers on a bus which plunges into a crevasse. Except this isn't fiction, and instead of a crevasse we have Hurricane Katrina. Although you know the hurricane is coming, and a sense of suspense about how the characters will be affected grows stronger as the book moves along, this is about much more than the hurricane. It is about the people of New Orleans - nine of them to be exact, and how their lives have unfurled over the past several decades. Dan Baum selected his characters well to represent many sides of this extraordinarily unique city, and they in turn granted him access to intimate details of their stories. He is a gifted memoirist, and tells the stories chronologically, with sections of the book devoted to different decades starting back in the 60s, and chapters about each of the nine people filling out each section. As a result, the reader gets a real sense of how New Orleans has evolved over the past half a century, and how its people have been affected by those changes. It's a difficult life for everyone for different reasons, but the book showcases the remarkable resilience they all show and their dedication to their community. I had the pleasure of meeting one of the characters, Ron Lewis, at his private museum, the House of Dance and Feathers in the Lower 9th Ward, during a recent trip to New Orleans. I highly recommend visiting Ron, and reading this book; I'll always have a special place in my heart for New Orleans as a result of both.

Builds gracefully and patiently, until the reader cares deeply about each of the nine people. Author's advice to have patience with so many characters for the first 50 pages was spot on - eventually they become more clear. What a beautiful way to represent a city, tragedy , and resiliency through nine citizen's lives. I'm late to discover this book but couldn't put it down.

Loved this book. I've always had a fascination with New Orleans since I visited during a trip across America in 2010 and this book immerses you in the stories of the people featured. Great read and highly recommend for anyone who is interested in the history and culture of America's most unique city and the people that make it what it is!

Great book well written and gives a clear picture of the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina recommend if you liked the TV series TREME

He vivido durante varios meses en Nueva Orleans, soy visitante habitual cada año y debo decir que este libro refleja perfectamente el alma de esta maravillosa ciudad. Si bien es cierto que al principio cuesta seguir las historias de todos los personajes, una vez coges el ritmo te sientes atrapado y cautivado por cada historia y vivencia. Al tratar 9 personajes diferentes, se obtiene una visión completa del espíritu de esta mágica ciudad, capaz de lo mejor y a la vez de lo peor.Totalmente recomendable a todos aquellos que tengan interés en conocer por que Nueva Orleans es a día de hoy una de las ciudades con más encanto del mundo.

was a very interesting book

An American friend suggested this book as a preview to a visit to New Orleans. It is a very easy read and an interesting structure looking at nine lives as they lead up to Katrina and then how they come together in the trauma. It is a really good for anyone who want to understand the city. I read it on the long journey to get there amd I was very pleased I did. It arrived quickly and was well packaged.