Katrina: After the Flood

A decade after Hurricane Katrina wreaked unprecedented destruction upon New Orleans, journalist Rivlin (Broke, USA) looks back at the fall and rebuilding of the Big Easy. It’s a sprawling, epic tale, filled with cold numbers and heartbreaking scenes of loss and devastation. It’s also an insightful, accessible saga that follows a wide cast of participants—including politicians, businessmen, and everyday residents—over the course of many years. Rivlin addresses the city’s history leading up to Katrina’s landfall, examines how the hurricane transformed the region, and then settles in for the long, arduous rebuilding process. He doesn’t pull punches as he looks at the political, economic, and social aspects of New Orleans’s struggle to recover, nor does he shy away from the complicated racial themes that have always been a part of the city’s history. Rivlin writes from firsthand experience as a journalist first sent to report on the storm’s immediate aftermath, and he skillfully balances out the human elements with concrete details of the devastation and the reconstruction that has followed. For those interested in how New Orleans came to the brink of destruction and slowly fought its way back to become a thriving, even improved, metropolis, this is certainly a work worth checking out. Agent: Elizabeth Kaplan, Elizabeth Kaplan Literary Agency. (Aug.)