Nine Lives (English)

In 2007, New Yorker reporter Dan Baum was assigned to visit New Orleans and document the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. Perhaps he experienced a grand case of the Florence Nightingale effect, because he fell in love with the battered city, eventually quitting his job and moving there to write this book. Baum lovingly documents the intertwined lives of nine of N'Orleans's unique citizens, dwelling in the details of their lives both before and after the storm hit. Among those portrayed are a transsexual, a city cop, and a carnival king, all of whom can clearly delineate their lives around the tragic force of Katrina. Baum introduces each person so intimately and effectively that, by the time the ominous rains begin to fall, the reader is overwhelmed with dread at the imminent disaster. minimize