I long to meet the person who says to me, “There’s nothing more refreshing on a hot summer day, than a scolding bucket of salt water!” I know what your thinking. I’m crazy. They’re crazy. And maybe you’re right. But you must agree that there is something interesting, almost magnetic, about irony.

New Orleans, Mon Amour

I reach for that ironic magnetism in what I read and, though usually middling, in what I write. To manipulate language in a way that sucker-punches readers right in the breadbasket of normalcy is an awesome feat for any writer. I cry for joy when I get it right once in a while, but Andrei Codrescu has been boxing the boring consistently for over twenty years.

Codrescu’s latest book, New Orleans, Mon Amour: Twenty Years of Writings from The City, is a collection of his short essays about his surrogate home, New Orleans, Louisiana. These essays serve as journal entries of sorts, exposing his life in New Orleans, from arrival to the present day, post Hurricane Katrina.

Codrescu clings to his New Orleans pride with wit and irony, by stating how having New Orleans transplants, all over the country, due to Katrina, will make American food better, and that the musicians will revitalize drab clubs that have been infiltrated with what he calls “canned music”. He boasts and compares New Orleans’ beauty to Venice, and is obviously crushed by the loss of it, while weeping on the page with language of heartache. But it’s important to note, the Katrina talk is only the last ten pages of the book. Codrescu spends the bulk of the body telling strikingly sincere anecdotes about the New Orleans he knew before the storm, and the New Orleans he still loves after it.

As with the minimal section about Katrina, Codrescu doesn’t waste time with stale banter about Mardi Gras, brass bands, and Bourbon Street. Not that these things aren’t authentically New Orleans, but these are the things about New Orleans that everyone, including those who’ve never been, knows are authentic. Instead, he candidly speaks about some of the “insider” intricacies of his experience, like wanting to eat a swan for dinner, or people who consistently dial the wrong number looking for the spirits of dead relatives on the other line, or even having a beer with a scorpion-faced midget pirate. And this is all in the first few pages. But he is no comedian performing a slapstick act. Rather he has woven into the midst of his sometimes absurd stories, examinations of culture, racial politics, and the traditions of this colorful habitat.

This book could actually be compared to a good pot of gumbo. It’s an authentic dish. It’s spicy enough to contort your face, but not to the point of discomfort. And everything imaginable is in it, especially all the things you wouldn’t expect!

The truth is, I haven’t finished reading Andrei Codrescu’s New Orleans, Mon Amour, ironically enough. Again, I know what you’re thinking. How could I write a review on it? Well, once I got to the part about the midget pirate I knew I had to tell someone at least what I read so far!

Feel free to read along with me, and leave comments. If not, well…