The Fight for Home

April 16, 2012
The destruction left by Hurricane Katrina in 2005 is only the starting point for the social drama that unfolds in Wolff’s (How Lincoln Learned to Read) grassroots-oriented investigation of the rebuilding of New Orleans’ most underprivileged and underrepresented neighborhoods. The controversy surrounding the initial federal government response during the disaster is supported by indications of continuing business-government corruption and economic exploitation during the reconstruction phase, though Wolff also details the remarkable contribution made by neighbors, pastors, former Black Panthers, and other volunteers and citizen organizations. Between these two sides is a battle line dividing competing maps and futures for the city and its inhabitants. Wolff’s impressive research utilizes dozens of interviews with community members and organizers collected over five years beginning in early 2006—including with members of Common Ground, a direct-democracy organization made up mostly of young volunteers from out of state, some of whom are veteran activists from the antiglobalization movement. Wolff’s reportage concentrates on the empowering, if also difficult, coordination across regional, racial, and class lines to provide basic aid and services to the largely African-American communities of the city’s devastated Ninth Ward, as well as a serious bid among such individuals and organizations to realize a future in which diversity and solidarity are the strength of a city and a society. Agent: David Black, David Black Agency.

May 15, 2012
Hurricane Katrina's destruction, its psychological toll on residents, its political choreography and consequences--all revealed by a handful of people over a 10-year period. Writer and documentary film producer Wolff (How Lincoln Learned to Read: Twelve Great Americans and the Educations that Made Them, 2009, etc.) begins five months after the disaster with a group of ex-addicts, organized and animated by Pastor Mel, who quickly realized that resurrection would come not from government agencies or insurance companies (who come off here as criminally dilatory), but from local residents and volunteers. By the end, Mel is much better off, his ministry greatly enlarged. Wolff introduces us to some other locals as well, revisiting them continually. Among them are some men at the Common Ground Collective, a group devoted to raising money and saving property in the devastated Lower Ninth. The author intercuts his encounters with his principals with biographical information. We also meet Carolyn and Kyrah, a struggling mother and daughter. Kyrah was a star student as a child, but we watch her fortunes fracture as she tries one college after another. Actor Brad Pitt is a presence in the narrative as well; he donated funds and spearheaded the construction of earth-friendly houses. The locals greatly appreciate him and do not see him as a self-absorbed white do-gooder. Wolff employs the present tense throughout, an effective device that helps him communicate the smells of decay, the depth of desperation and the powerful frustrations of people who feel abandoned in their own land. The author generally resists editorializing and allows the stories of these blasted lives and sturdy souls to transmit his powerful message.

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August 1, 2012
Hurricane Katrina rendered New Orleans, already plagued by high unemployment, crime, and poverty, a fresh canvas for visions of how to rebuild a city. Wolff spent five years documenting the efforts of an eclectic cross section of community activists, urban reformers, and volunteers fighting to reclaim New Orleans even as developers moved to fill that fresh canvas with their own visions. Wolff details the history of New Orleans, from the Civil War to its more modern period of urban decline, exploring the factors that contributed to a population decline even before Katrina hit. Frustrated and disappointed with the slow pace of government help, a hodgepodge of young and aging activists converged on New Orleans' communities, including Pastor Mel and his ministry of former addicts and Suncere Ali Shakur, a former black radical operating a collective of volunteers. Locals removed moldy drywall, cleared downed trees, and manned distribution centers for food and water. The flood exposed long-ignored social issues and provided an organizing event for activists across the nation and for the search for long-term, more lasting solutions to poverty.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2012, American Library Association.)