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Title details for Plenty Enough Suck to Go Around by Cheryl Wagner - Available

Plenty Enough Suck to Go Around

by Cheryl Wagner
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Print and public-radio journalist Wagner describes rebuilding after Hurricane Katrina...Despite Kafkaesque experiences with the infamous bureaucratic mess that threatened to undo New Orleans once and for all, the couple held on to their optimism for the city and their little piece of it. Wagner captures the nostalgia, the heartbreak and the friendships spawned in Katrina's turbulent aftermath with raw emotional honesty free of sentimentality. Unflinching, humorous and heartfelt. —Kirkus Reviews
The cliché New Orleans gets into people's blood happens to be very true–just not always convenient. For Cheryl Wagner, along with her indie-band boyfriend, a few eccentric pals, and two aging basset hounds, abandoning the city she loved wasn't an option.
This is the story of Cheryl's disturbing surprise view from her front porch after she moved back home to find everything she treasured in shambles. . .and her determined, absurd, and darkly funny three-year journey of trying to piece it all back together.
In the same heartfelt and hilarious voice that has drawn thousands of listeners to her broadcasts on Public Radio International's This American Life, Wagner shares her unique yet universal story of rebuilding a life after it's been flooded, dried, and died. . .
"Dark, funny, generous and jarring—occasionally tragic but never sentimental." —Paul Tough, author of Whatever It Takes: Geoffrey Canada's Quest to Change Harlem and America
"A wonderful, touching, thoughtful, crazy, loving book." —Frederick Barthelme, author of Waveland and eleven other works of fiction including Elroy Nights, a finalist for the PEN/Faulkner Award and a New York Times Notable Book
"A wild, blood and guts lived-to-tell-all memoir." —Porochista Khakpour, author of Sons and Other Flammable Objects
"The book would be heartbreaking if it weren't so funny, so clear-eyed, and so beautifully fierce." —James Whorton Jr., author of Frankland
"I love it." — Pete Jordan, author of Dishwasher: One Man's Quest to Wash Dishes in Fifty States
"Imagine if Jack Kerouac had lived through the flood and wrote you a long, personal letter from the wreckage." —Jonathan Goldstein, author of Ladies and Gentlemen, The Bible! and Host of CBC's and PRI's radio show WireTap
"Wagner writes with honesty and humor." —Annie Choi, author of Happy Birthday or Whatever
"A work of art, unsparing of everything, including itself." —Jack Pendarvis, author of Awesome

  • Creators

  • Publisher

  • Release date

    April 28, 2009

  • Formats

    • Kindle Book

    • OverDrive Read

      • ISBN: 9780806531786
      • File size: 588 KB

    • EPUB ebook

      • ISBN: 9780806531786
      • File size: 588 KB

  • Languages

    • English

  • Reviews

    • Kirkus

      April 1, 2009
      Print and public-radio journalist Wagner describes rebuilding after Hurricane Katrina.

      Viewing the devastation from afar as evacuees, the author and her boyfriend Jake decided to return to New Orleans and rebuild their flooded home—while trying not to think about the months they had spent remodeling it not long before the storm. Accompanied by two loyal basset hounds, Clo and Buster, they undertook the immense task of gutting and repairing hazardous, rotted rooms, trying to keep the mold spores and dust from taking over. Wagner's matter-of-fact descriptions of post-flood conditions will stir the reader's sympathy and horror, but her memoir is also surprisingly, albeit grimly funny as she chronicles her dogged efforts to stay sane and to help bring back to life what she loved about New Orleans. As the months passed, conditions in her neighborhood worsened, and tragedies began to pile up around her and Jake. The temptation to give up for an easier life in any number of other places was great, but the plucky pair persevered, celebrating the city's baby steps forward with the enthusiasm of citizens who have found their home and will stick by it through the toughest of times. Wagner's quotidian pacing makes for a slow start, but once she and Jake"sneak back to our own house" (the city was still under martial law), her tale of woe and hard-won resurrection gathers force. Despite Kafkaesque experiences with the infamous bureaucratic mess that threatened to undo New Orleans once and for all, the couple held on to their optimism for the city and their little piece of it. Wagner captures the nostalgia, the heartbreak and the friendships spawned in Katrina's turbulent aftermath with raw emotional honesty free of sentimentality.

      Unflinching, humorous and heartfelt.

      (COPYRIGHT (2009) KIRKUS REVIEWS/NIELSEN BUSINESS MEDIA, INC. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.)

    • Library Journal

      May 11, 2009
      After Hurricane Katrina, thirty-something NPR contributor Wagner snuck back into off-limits New Orleans with her musician boyfriend and two dogs to discover their charming ramshackle home seeping and gutted, their neighborhood a lawless, postapocalyptic nightmare. Wagner confronts an avalanche of heartbreak, from the mentally ill neighbors living in squalor to the murder of a close friend. Though the constant setbacks and endless tales of woe can get soul-numbing after a few chapters, she has penned a touching and heartfelt paean to her beloved city of oddballs. Listen-alikes: Wagner's This American Life broadcasts.-Lauren Gilbert, Cold Spring Harbor Lib., NY

      Copyright 2009 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

Formats

  • Kindle Book
  • OverDrive Read
  • EPUB ebook

subjects

Languages

  • English

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