A review by minvanwin
City of Refuge by Tom Piazza

4.0

City of Refuge is Tom Piazza's passionate love letter to New Orleans. This story about how Hurricane Katrina affected two families--one white and middle class, one poor and black--is at turns heart- and gut-wrenching. Large chunks of the book read like narrative non-fiction: descriptions of the city, the levees, the damage, and media attention during the storm and its immediate aftermath, and diatribes about an ineffective and disorganized government response. The main white character seems largely autobiographical while the rest of the characters feel like composite portraits based on thousands of victims and evacuees. Certainly not a perfect book, but definitely worth reading.