READ!: New Orleans

Jazz, vampires, hauntings, mystery, murders, mobsters, madams, Mardi Gras, monster storms, and so much more have always made New Orleans an incredible setting for literature, where fiction and fact can often seem interchangeable. I have pored through many of these, but still have a healthy list of titles vying for stack-top position on the bedside table – not to mention the cries for a reread! Enjoy and please let me know if you have suggestions to add!!

FICTION:

• Almost Innocent, by Shelia Bosworth – a vibrant, heartrending story of love and loss set in “the city that care forgot”
• A Confederacy of Dunces, by John Kennedy O’Toole – just trust…a classic must read
• The Neon Rain: A Dave Robicheaux Novel, by James Lee Burke – first in a series of 24 detective bestsellers
• Decorations in a Ruined Cemetery, by John Gregory Brown – lyrical family, faith, and identity saga of the Eagan family
• Dinner at Antoine’s, Frances Parkinson Keyes – a murder mystery classic
• Feast of All Saints, by Anne Rice (not a vampire story!) – historical fiction pre-Civil War account of the “Free People of Color” a Louisiana people unique in Southern history
• Hotel, by Arthur Hailey – one of my favorites! plot twisting page turner set in New Orleans’ largest and most elite hotel. excellent characters.
• Islands Beneath the Sea, by Isabel Allende – always beautiful to read her stories, this intense historical fiction is set in colonial Haiti and New Orleans
• King Zeno, by Nathaniel Rich – an axe murderer draws together a cop, a Mafia matriarch, and a jazz musician in this crime drama set in 1918
• Mosquitos, by William Faulkner – published in 1927, the author satirically chronicles his experience with artists in New Orleans
• Out of the Easy, by Ruta Sepetys – a teen struggling to leave her life in 1950’s NOLA is held back by an unfolding mystery
• Pretend I am Someone You Like, by Shome Dasgupta – innovating and unnerving story about backwater Louisiana youths struggling to escape their violent past
• Pylon, by William Faulkner – a reporter for a local newspaper tries to understand a trio of air show fliers in a thinly disguised 1940’s New Orleans
• The Awakening, by Kate Chopin – set at the end of the 19th century, the plot centers on a woman’s struggle to reconcile her unorthodox views on femininity and motherhood with the prevailing social attitudes of the turn-of-the-century American South
• The Axeman’s Jazz, by Ray Celestin – the first book of the City Blues Quartet, a series of novels which charts the twin histories of jazz and the Mob through the middle of the twentieth century
• The Binding, by Victoria Clapton – first in a series of six Binding Universe books “for anyone who loves New Orleans, the south, vampires, voodoo, and food”
• The Casquette Girls, by Alys Arden – first in a series of four tween fiction novels set in a post-hurricane NOLA beset by mysteries and monsters.
• The Lower Quarter, by Elise Blackwell – a murder and a missing painting in a city struggling to recover from Katrina’s devastation
• The Moviegoer, by Walker Percy – detailing the existential crisis of a young stockbroker in the 1960s, this is one of several philosophical novels set in the city by the late prize-winning author
• The Optimist’s Daughter, by Eudora Welty – a young woman who has left the South returns years later to New Orleans where her father is dying 
• The Not Yet, by Moira Crone – dark futuristic vision of a divided society clawing out a living in a half-submerged city
• The Seamstress of New Orleans, by Diane McPhail – historical fiction set against the backdrop of the first all-female Mardi Gras krewe at the turn-of-the-century
• The Value of X, by Poppy Z. Brite – the first in an entertaining series of novels about a chef couple working their way up the restaurant scene
• The Vampire Chronicles, by Anne Rice – vampires are my bugaboo so I may never read these, but if it’s your thing you have 12 to keep you enthralled!
• The Wish Collector, by Mia Sheridan – “When ballet dancer Clara Campbell arrives in New Orleans, lonely and homesick, she is immediately captivated by the story of Windisle Plantation and the tragic tale that is said to have transpired beyond its gate.”
• Vieux Carré, by Tennessee Williams – the author began this semi-autobiographical play shortly after moving to NOLA in 1938, but did not complete it for nearly 40 years
• Voodoo Dreams: A Novel of Marie Laveau, by Jewell Parker Rhodes – historical novel based on the life of a 19th-century voodoo queen
• Zorro, by Isabel Allende – not entirely set in NOLA but you get some good scenes there, and the high adventure story is worth a read regardless

SHORT STORIES

• How Long ‘til Black Future Month, by N.K. Jemisin – haunting short stories offer “fantastical, alternative versions of New Orleans where dragons roam after Hurricane Katrina, a mysterious restaurant cooks up culinary treats from the past, and a woman finds love in a steampunk version of the city.”
• In the Land of Dreamy Dreams, by Ellen Gilchrist – 14 short stories about young, upper-class Southern women chafing against the restrictions of their sheltered lives
• New Orleans Noir and New Orleans Noir: The Classics, edited by Julie Smith – rich anthologies of noir fiction set in the Big Easy
• Shadows and Cypress: Southern Ghost Stories, by Alan Brown – a collection of dozens of local ghost tales from across the southern states including LA  
• The Devils We Know, edited by Leonard Lopp – a collection of short stories set in New Orleans
• Wide Awake in the Pelican State: Stories by Contemporary Louisiana Writers, edited by Ann Brewster

NON-FICTION –

• Dr. Mary’s Monkey, by Edward T Haslam. – a bizarre cold case update includes documents from the FBI, CIA, CDC, and NOPD, plus the actual crime scene photos from the 1964 murder of Dr. Mary Sherman
• Empire of Sin: A Story of Sex, Jazz, Murder, and the Battle for Modern New Orleans, by Gary Krist Nonfiction centered around corruption in the city in the 1920s and 30s, including many key historical characters
• Economy Hall: The Hidden History of a Free Black Brotherhood, by Fatima Shaik – history of the author’s ancestors who built a unique community and held it together through the eras of slavery, the Civil War, Reconstruction, and Jim Crow terrorism
• Gumbo Tales: Finding My Place at the New Orleans Table, by Sara Roahen – delicious travelogue through the city’s diverse food culture
• Madame Lalaurie, by Carolyn Morrow Long – Madame LaLaurie was a New Orleans socialite and serial killer who was believed to have tortured and murdered enslaved people in her household.  Her French Quarter mansion has been referred to as “the most haunted house in the city.”
• New Orleans, Mon Amour: Twenty Years of Writings from the City, by Andrei Codrescu – NPR commentator’s essays and musings about his unique and sometimes bizarre adopted home town
• Nine Lives, Death and Life in New Orleans, by Dan Baum – hidden histories of the city told through the intersecting lives of nine people, and framed by two epic storms.
• Satchmo: My Life in New Orleans, by Louis Armstrong
• The Last Madam: A Life in the New Orleans Underworld, by Chris Wiltz – life story of one of the most colorful characters in 1920s French Quarter
• The Yellow House, by Sarah Broom – family memoir set in a 1960’s shotgun house in East NOLA. 2019 National Book Award Winner

RESOURCES:

Literary City Guides

• https://www.frommers.com/slideshows/845263-new-orleans-10-literary-landmarks
• https://www.wyes.org/tv/wyes-originals/literary-new-orleans/
• https://theculturetrip.com/north-america/usa/louisiana/articles/the-culture-trip-literary-city-guide-to-new-orleans
• New Orleans Poetry Festival and Small Press Fair

Tennessee Williams:

• Tennessee Williams & New Orleans Literary Festival
• https://countryroadsmagazine.com/art-and-culture/literature/tennessee-in-new-orleans
• https://www.frenchquarterjournal.com/archives/tennessee-williams-and-the-french-quarter

William Faulker:

• Faulkner House Books – https://faulknerhousebooks.com/
• https://neworleanshistorical.org/items/show/1396