BROKEN LEVEE BOOKS
On August 29, 2005, when the levees broke in New Orleans, something deep within the American psyche broke too. The broken levees were not the Twin Towers; in many ways they were worse. In the wake of 9/11, there was a moment of global solidarity, and though our leaders squandered it with a cynical war, there was no such moment after the levees broke. We were left with only disgust, helplessness, rage. In New Orleans, we couldn’t even blame Katrina — almost all of the flooding was caused by levee and floodwall failures.
In those days after the levees broke — on September 1, 2005, to be exact — Chin Music Press decided to respond. We put together an anthology of essays and art in September and October. New Orleanians wrote about their city as they slept on friends’ couches or in family guest rooms in other, less colorful towns, wondering whether the Crescent City would survive. The book, structured like a jazz funeral, was published in February 2006. It’s called Do You Know What It Means to Miss New Orleans?
The Broken Levee Books imprint takes its cue from that day when the water sloshed over the levee embankments and rushed into New Orleans. Books under the imprint look at what’s broken in the United States and how we can fix it. They tell colorful stories in an American vernacular. They deal chin music.
We are building a separate site for the imprint at brokenleveebooks.com. We’re also moving our Voices of New Orleans blog there. Look for everything to be back online in time for Jazz Fest in New Orleans at the end of April as we celebrate this spring’s BLB release, a young adult novel by Tracey Tangerine entitled Buddy Zooka: In the French Quarter and Beyond.
Other Broken Levee Books:
Last of the Red Hot Poppas by Jason Berry
Where We Know: New Orleans as Home edited by David Rutledge (coming in fall 2010)