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Monday, August 25, 2008

American - Joshua Clark

- - Abby - -
This is a 1st-hand account of a few hours of the chaos as Katrina approached and New Orleans was flooded. I haven't read many Katrina accounts, but I found it jarring. How easily a societal structure can be swept away, how quickly we turn to violence. The story was well-written, I found it very tactile, the darkness, the filth were all very present in the reading.

I think my one complaint (with either the story or the book) is the lack of background. I don't know if this is an excerpt from a longer accounting (no details given) or not, but the characters were really undeveloped. I like to get to know people a little better. If it is an excerpt, I'd have wanted a paragraph of intro, if not, the author could've thrown in a sentence or two to explain at least the relationships between the members of the group.

1 comment:

ann said...

The scariest part for me was the simple lack of information. I mean, they didn't even know what they were grabbing at the supermarket, let alone when the levees were going to be blown.