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Seanachie: A Boston Irish Storyteller and Part-Time Shaman
Books about place, magic, Faeries, Ireland, sex, God, and love
Currently reading
New Orleans as It Was
New Orleans after the Civil War
Visions and Beliefs in the West of Ireland (complete: First & Second Series)
Bright Dead Things: Poems
The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck: A Counterintuitive Approach to Living a Good Life
Desire: Poems
Selected Poems 1976-2012
An Anthology of Modern Irish Poetry
I Am An Executioner: Love Stories
An Artist of the Floating World
The World That Made New Orleans: From Spanish Silver to Congo Square
From Ned Sublette comes a lively, rollicking recounting of the three histories of New Orleans: French, Spanish, and American. Covering the earliest days of the city through the first quarter century or so of the Nineteenth Century, Sublette’s is detailed, nuanced work, focusing particularly on the connections between La Nouvelle Orleans and Havana and Saint Domingo. Drawing the musical and spiritual connections between the three locations and their roots in West Africa, Sublette describes the interplay of cultures and the central role of free people of color in the burgeoning port as well as the world-wide political events that influenced the city’s history. Sublette’s technique is the opposite of dry history; it is told in a louche, mischievous voice that occasionally slips into the first person and draws incisive connections between historical events and those more contemporary, such as Hurricane Katrina. Sublette’s sorrow over the displacement of residents and disruption of (especially black) culture post-Katrina causes him to get a bit lost in the out-of-place coda to the book; here, the narrative loses a little force due to nostalgia. But overall, Sublette, a New Yorker but Louisiana native gives us an admirable and entertaining work about America’s most interesting city.
