Books Set in North America, New Orleans, Louisiana and New York

Returning: A Search for Home Across Three Centuries, by Nicholas Lemann (2026)

Read:  April 24, 2026

4 Stars

Books Set in North America; North America; New Orleans, Louisiana

The Things We Lost to Water, by Eric Nguyen (2021)

The Things We Lost to Water is a wonderful novel about a Vietnamese family that immigrated to the United States from Vietnam after the war.  The novel begins in 1978 when pregnant Hương and her young son, Tuấn, run towards a boat to escape from Vietnam.  Hương was grasping her husband’s hand, but in the crush of people, they were separated and he stayed behind.  Hương gave birth to her second son, Bình, in a refuge camp.

Ultimately, the family finds itself in Louisiana and settle in New Orleans East.  Hương writes and continues to try to communicate with her husband Công, begging him to leave Vietnam and come to New Orleans.  Most of her letters are returned to her, however, she eventually received a postcard from him telling her not to contact him anymore.  She tells her sons that their father died in Vietnam.  His absence in the family is actually a presence in the family.  His “ghost” hovers over his sons.

The author captures New Orleans East with its shotgun houses, slummy apartment buildings and bayou filled with garbage.  As a young teen, Tuấn rebelled against his mother’s overprotection and joined a Vietnamese gang.  Although he was very young when he left Vietnam, he had some memories, hence ties, to his country of birth.  Bình, however, never lived in Vietnam, and felt American, so insisted that he be called Ben.  Ben is studious and after he landed a job with a literature professor, was able to obtain a scholarship to attend college.

Although she never stopped loving Công, Hương met and began dating Vinh, a fellow refugee with no apparent ability to hold a job.  He moves in with the family and tries to assume a surrogate father to Hương’s son.  Years later, Hương learns that Công died.  She and Tuấn return to Vietnam for his burial service.  They find that the country has vastly changed in the years since they were gone.

The novel takes the reader from the family running through water in Vietnam to facing the flooding following Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans.  Water is a thread throughout this novel.  The Vietnamese word Nước means both country and water, thus the book’s title is a bit of a pun.  This novel captures the flavor of the New Orleans immigrant experience.

Read:  October 28, 2021

5 Stars

Books Set in North America: Caribbean and Louisiana

Island Beneath the Sea, by Isabel Allende (2010)

Island Beneath the Sea, by Isabel Allende, is a historical novel that takes place on the Caribbean island of Saint-Domingue (current day Haiti) and New Orleans from the late 1700s, through the French Revolution slave rebellion of Saint-Domingue of 1804, and the Louisiana Purchase.  The novel follows a young slave girl, Zarité, known as Tété.  The novel is mostly told in third person, but some chapters are narrated by Zarité.

In the 1700s, wealthy French plantation owners ran and operated sugar plantations on Saint-Domingue.  Young Toulouse Valmorain left France to travel to Saint-Domingue to assist his father with the family’s plantation.  He intended to stay only a few weeks, but when he arrived, he found his father dying and the sugar plantation in deplorable conditions.  He soon found himself inheriting the sugar plantation, complete with hundreds of slaves.  When he married, he purchased Tété for his spoiled, Spanish/Cuban bride.

Compared to his neighboring plantation owners, Valmorain was relatively kind, however, he allowed his ruthless overseer handle discipline.  When his wife became ill, Tété tended to her.  Valmorain found the young Tété attractive, and soon called her to his bed.  As a slave, Tété had no alternative but to obey his call, even though she was just a child when he first began his sexual relationshio (rape) with her.  She bore him two children, the first of which was quickly whisked away from her, while the second, was raised in the plantation home along with Valmorain’s legitimate son.

The novel described the beginning of the slave revolt, which was led by the historical figure of Toussaint Louverture.  When Tété learned that the rebellion was approaching her master’s plantation, and that the master and his house slaves would be slaughter, she convincee Valmorain to pack up his family and leave the plantation in the middle of the night.  Eventually, they arrived in Louisiana, where Valmorain, through his brother-in-law, had purchased property and made contacts.

Valmorain had promised to free Tété and her daughter, and had given her a written document to that effect, however, he also convinced her that her freedom would not become effective until she turned 30 years old.

The novel vividly describes life in New Orleans under Spanish rule in the late 1700s before it came under French, then American governance.

I thoroughly enjoyed this book with its glimpse into this historical period.

Read:  January 21, 2020

5 Stars

Books Set in North America: United States: New Orleans, Louisiana

The Yellow House, by Sarah M. Broom (2019)

The Yellow House is a memoir of New Orleans as seen through eyes of a large, loving family that grew up in New Orleans East.  In 1961, Ivory Webb, a 19-year-old widow with two young children, purchased a house for just over $3,000, on Wilson Avenue in New Orleans East.  She would live in that tiny house for the next 44 years.  Over that period, she would remarry a man named Simon Broom and the family would grow to 12 children.

Sarah Broom, the author, is the youngest child, born in the final days of 1979.  Almost exactly six months later, her father died suddenly, leaving Ivory to raise her family on her own.

While he was alive, Simon would continually attempt to make renovations and repairs on the house.  After his death, the house became another “child” to tend to.  At some point in time, yellow siding was put up on the house, hence the Yellow House that Sarah grew up on.

The first part of the book delves into the history of the development of New Orleans East and its transformation to the neighborhood it became.  By the time the author was born, the neighborhood had changed and was the forgotten district of New Orleans, surrounded by Lake Ponchartrain and the Industrial Canal.

Sarah grew in a loving home environment.  Her mother was determined to see that her children were raised to achieve.  When Sarah began hanging out with the wrong crowd in junior high school, her mother sent her to a religious private school.  Some of her brothers also attended private schools.  Money that could have been used to make repairs in the house went towards education. 

Sarah went to college in Texas.  Two of her brothers drive her to her new environment, where she is suddenly exposed to a bigger world than her comfortable New Orleans.  She eventually lands a job in New York working for O Magazine.  She was living there on that fateful day when Hurricane Katrina struck.  Most of her family, however, was still living in New Orleans East, although they had been evacuated before the levees broke.  The large family became scattered all over the United States.

New Orleans East was one of the first areas of the city to be inundated by water from Katrina.  The Yellow House was severely damaged as water literally covered the house.  The house, however, did not collapse, nor was it displaced to another location, as so many other houses in New Orleans East and the 9th Ward were.

The Federal Government established a Road Home Program, designed to assist Louisiana residents who had been affected by Katrina (and Hurricane Rita, which occurred a month after Katrina).  The Program was to assist homeowners with funds to rebuild their homes.  The Program, however, was fraught with problems.  In addition, city officials, hoping to rid the City of blight, determined that it would demolish homes unless the owners indicated otherwise.  Notices of the demolitions were mailed to the address of the homes that were to be razed.  Thus, 2 years passed and the Broom family was still living outside of New Orleans when the Notice of Demolition was mailed to the Yellow House.  The family was unaware of the notice, and the house ~ the bloodline of Ivory ~ was torn down.  There was little recourse to the family.

After traveling the globe in search of jobs to avoid the trauma of Katrina, the author eventually returns to New Orleans, this time living in the French Quarter, to try to find closure.

I am not generally a fan of memoirs, however, I found this to be fascinating.  I lived (and still live) in South Louisiana during Hurricane Katrina.  I was intimately familiar with the rebuilding of public spaces in the City.  Thus, I was intrigued by the author’s perspective.  She has a beautiful way of describing her surroundings.  I could almost see and feel the city through the pages.

A few photographs were included in the book.  I would liked to have seen more.  Also, a map of the City would be helpful for readers unfamiliar with New Orleans.

Read:  January 6, 2010

5 Stars

Books Set in the United States: New Orleans, Louisiana

Madam: A Novel of New Orleans, by Cari Lynn and Kellie Martin (2014)

This novel takes place just before the turn of last century with the creation of Storyville in New Orleans.  The characters in this novel are real, although some liberties were taken with the timeline of the events.

The novel follows the life of Mary Deubler, a young prostitute working in a rough area of the city called Venus Alley.  She was forced to follow her mother's footsteps into prostitution to support her young brother and his even younger wife.

Sidney Story, a puritanical alderman in the city was the author of an ordinance that created district of the city to be set aside for "vices of the flesh."  This area became known as Storyville, and was where the prostitutes and their johns would not be arrested.

Mary meets up with certain people and transformed herself into the notorious Madam Josie Arlington.  Along the telling of this story we meet other historical figures such as Jelly Roll Morton and the famous Storyville photographer, E.J. Bellocq.

The novel focused primarily on Mary's life before she became the infamous Madam Arlington.

I enjoyed this historical view of New Orleans.

Read:  August 21, 2016

Books Set in the United States: New Orleans, Louisiana

Five Days at Memorial: Life and Death in a Storm-Ravaged Hospital, by Sheri Fink (2013)

Five Days at Memorial: Life and Death in a Storm-Ravaged Hospital is one of the best books I have read about Hurricane Katrina and its aftermath in one of the New Orleans Hospitals.  It describes not only the events that took place at Baptist Memorial Hospital in the five days following Hurricane Katrina, but also provides some history of the hospital and medical disasters in general.  The hospital had not effective triage system to care for critically ill patients, hence, they were last on the list for evacuation.  Were some of these patients euthanized before the hospital was finally evacuated?

This book explores the issues, both legal and political, regarding the treatment of patients and the medical staff in the handling of patients during such a this hurricane disaster.  The first part of this book describes the five days surrounding Hurricane Katrina, from August 28 through September 1, 2015 when the hospital was operating under disastrous conditions ~ the hospital had lost power, its back-up generators were inadequate, and the lower floors became flooded.  Evacuation of patients took a long time, and decisions were made to evacuate the most ambulatory patients first.  Critically ill patients were given morphine, ostensibly to provide them with comfort to ease their pain, but were these injections lethal doses designed to hasten the death of patients the medical staff could not survive?

The second part of the book focuses on the legal and political aspects of the hospital’s response to the hurricane disaster.  The hospital was run by an out-of-state health care company that seemed to have little understanding of what was actually occurring in New Orleans following Katrina.  Some of the medical staff were horrified to think that some patients were deliberately euthanized.  As a result, the Louisiana Attorney General initiated an investigation, which focused on Dr. Anna Pou and two intensive care nurses.  Charges were ultimately dropped.  The questions, however, persist.

I found this book to be very well written and felt the author provided a balanced view one whether or not these critically patients were euthanized.  The author’s well researched investigation provides the reader with sufficient evidence to allow the reader to decide whether or not the patients were euthanized.

5 Stars

Read: May 15, 2016