New Orleans, pre-Katrina
Babylon Rolling by Amanda Boyden
Set in New Orleans in August of 2004, Babylon Rolling is a good story full of well-developed characters, and a rich tapestry of ethnicities and origins and attitudes that populate one neighborhood in the storied city.
The main characters are all neighbors in one of those neighborhoods that was both old and new, with black, white, and Indian families. Their lives begin to intersect in more than a normal, casual way, and events and circumstances snowball gradually into the climax of the tale, and beyond.
Fearius (real name Daniel) - 15 and just out of lock-up, and his hilariously-named sisters are the children of an African-American family that has been in the neighborhood forever. His family hopes that he is done with the trouble that got him into Juvie in the first place, but he’s still figuring out who and what he’s going to be. Contrasting with him are Ed and Ariel Frank and their two small children - a young white family that moved down from Minneapolis for her job as a hotel manager. Ed is being a stay-at-home parent, and there is tension as Ariel sees him as being too soft, and weak, without ambition. Older neighbors Cerise Brown and Philomene Beauregard de Bruges and their husbands are long-term residents but not exactly friends, but everyone is a united in their suspicious of the Guptas, a perfectly friendly family but with exotic accents and highly fragrant foods that scent the neighbor’s air.
All in all, the struggles of each character and their interactions leading up to the non-event of Hurricane Ivan - which spared New Orleans, unlike Katrina in 2007, and their struggles with mental illness, identity, and how to make their way in the world make an engrossing tale, and a fascinating read.
As the book was published in 2008, there is a brief epilogue concerning Katrina, and that just adds to the feeling that these could be real people, living in a very real neighborhood in the mixed bag of life that is New Orleans.
I do recommend it, it’s a quick read and a satisfying story. And I didn’t review this when I first read it, as we had hurricane after hurrican this summer rolling into the Gulf of Mexico. It really has very little to do with the storms, and I didn’t want to leave that impression. It’s totally about the people, fascinating in their own right. And of course, now Hurricane Paloma is active in the Atlantic.
Tags: Amanda Boyden, fiction, hurricane, Ivan, Katrina, New Orleans