| | The House on First Street: My New Orleans Story (P.S.) |  | Author: Julia Reed
Publisher: Harper Perennial
Category: Book
List Price: $13.99
Buy New: $11.19
You Save: $2.80 (20%)
Avg. Customer Rating:  54 reviews
Media: Paperback
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 224
Dimensions (in): 8 x 5.3 x 0.5
ISBN: 0061136654
Dewey Decimal Number: 920
EAN: 9780061136658
ASIN: 0061136654
Publication Date: July 1, 2009 (In 221 Days)
Shipping: Eligible for Super Saver Shipping
Availability: Not yet published
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Product Description
Julia Reed went to New Orleans in 1991 to cover the reelection of former (and currently incarcerated) governor Edwin Edwards. Seduced by the city's sauntering pace, its rich flavors and exotic atmosphere, she was never entirely able to leave again. After almost fifteen years of living like a vagabond on her reporter's schedule, she got married and bought a house in the historic Garden District. Four weeks after she moved in, Hurricane Katrina struck. With her house as the center of her own personal storm as well as the ever-evolving stage set for her new life as an upstanding citizen, Reed traces the fates of all who enter to wine, dine (at her table for twenty-four), tear down walls, install fixtures, throw fits and generally leave their mark on the house on First Street. There's Antoine, Reed's beloved homeless handyman with an unfortunate habit of landing in jail; JoAnn Clevenger, the Auntie Mame—like restaurateur who got her start mixing drinks for Dizzy Gillespie and selling flowers from a cart; Eddie, the supremely laid-back contractor with Hollywood ambitions; and, with the arrival of Katrina, the boys from the Oklahoma National Guard, fleets of door-kicking animal rescuers and the self-appointed (and occasionally naked) neighborhood watchman. Finally, there's the literally clueless detective who investigates the robbery in which the first draft of this book was stolen. Through it all, Reed discovers there really is no place like home. Rich with sumptuous details and with the author's trademark humor well in the fore, The House on First Street is the chronicle of a remarkable and often hilarious homecoming, as well as a thoroughly original tribute to our country's most original city.
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| Customer Reviews: Read 49 more reviews...
 At times tedious and disappointing August 28, 2008
33 out of 36 found this review helpful
I lived in New Orleans for several years, luckily I managed to move far away a couple of years before Katrina, so I missed all of that. So when I learned about this book I thought it would be fascinating to read about someone else's experiences living there and dealing with contractors and construction (like I did) and going through all the horror of Katrina. In the end, the book was not fascinating, it was a bit tedious, sometimes infuriating, and occasionally interesting and maybe even a little entertaining.
I don't want readers out there to think, based on the author's experiences, that all the locals hang out at Galatoire's drinking vodka all day because no one expects you to come back to the office after lunch. I worked for a living, I owned a tour company and later I had office jobs. I assure you if I spent all day drinking my lunch at a super expensive landmark restaurant someone would definitely care and I would dearly pay for it. In fact, I never knew any locals who ever even went to Galatoire's, no one I knew could afford it, and Galatoire's is considered to be mostly for tourists anyway.
Julia Reed is obviously pretty wealthy, so it was hard to identify with her or commiserate with her when her fabulous 6,000 square foot Garden District millionaire's mansion had a leak in the sunroom. It's hard to care when she gets a checking account from daddy with $5000 in it after she evacuates from the storm when so many other people didn't have anything. It's hard to give a damn when sometimes it seemed like all she really cared about was getting her servants back after the storm. My New Orleans friends and I never had servants, my house was nowhere near the Garden District, I lived in the 9th ward, I owned my own business and worked hard as hell so I could eat at places like Louisiana Pizza Kitchen, Angeli, and Coop's Place---none of which are expensive or owned by John Besh and other star chefs/friends of Reed's. And that's not to say that she should be criticized for being wealthy and having a far cushier life in New Orleans than I did, it's just hard to care about her and her story when she has so much and when I was there I watched most people all around me suffer daily under crushing poverty and extreme crime.
What I found rather repugnant was her attitude towards the people who came from all over the country to rescue the stranded and starving pets. She seems to find great sport in making fun of them and belittling their efforts. When she sees an aviary rescue van she wonders what's the big deal about rescuing people's pet birds while New Orleans has some wild parakeets that fly around the city. Well, maybe because these pet birds are not wild and they're not flying around the city, they're trapped in cages unfed and unwatered alone and dying in hot or flooded houses crawling with mold, maybe that's why there were people out there trying to rescue them. I found her comments ridiculous and unfeeling, she was more worried about getting her house finished, her servants back, and her expensive restaurant hang outs reopened so she could hurry up and get back to her normal leisurely life.
On top of everything, the author's obsession with alcohol throughout the entire book, mentioning it in some way just about every 2 pages or so, gets very tedious. Very few people I knew living in New Orleans were this obsessed with drinking, and the ones that were desperately needed rehab. Tourists, of course, go to New Orleans in droves specifically to drink and stagger around the garbage piled streets of the French Quarter, but honestly, all the locals I knew and did business with and were friends with all around the city were far too busy to sit around drinking and obsessing about fine wines and expensive liquors all the time. Julia Reed's New Orleans is nothing like my New Orleans, and that's a shame because the New Orleans I experienced was a lot more realistic and gritty, as well as fascinating and entertaining.
 Definitely A Different Angle August 4, 2008
30 out of 32 found this review helpful
Having lived my entire life in southwestern Louisiana and having experienced and worked in the aftermath of my fair share of hurricanes, I picked up "The House On First Street" by Julia Reed hoping to get a firsthand account of Hurricane Katrina.
As expected, the bulk of the book is centered on the refurbishment of Reed's house pre- and post-Katrina in the beautiful Garden District of New Orleans. Through poor decisions and plain ol' dumb luck, Reed experiences trial after trial attempting to get her home to a liveable degree. Her complications are not unfamiliar to anybody who has ever attempted to refurbish an old home. Still, her writing style does make the whole experience fun to read.
She does an excellent job of describing the Crescent City. She gives vivid details on all of the typical tourist traps like Bourbon Street and Anne Rice's rather unique former home, but is at her best when giving descriptions of the food that can be found throughout the city. This is also where Reed's detachment from reality can be found.
It's obvious that Reed has plenty of money. There's absolutely nothing wrong with that. She doesn't even try to hide it (Marie Antoinette references and countless name-droppings to boot). However, the fact that she isn't lacking for funds gives this Katrina story an entirely different spin.
Many folks (including my brother who's lived close to twenty years in the Big Easy) were worried about their homes, missing family and friends, jobs and futures. Others were trying to establish their lives in new homes such as Dallas, Houston, or one of the countless other cities that graciously took in refugees (yes, I said refugees) from New Orleans.
Reed, on the other hand, wondered if her wine was still in good shape and whether or not she'd be able to get lump crabmeat from her regular place. When some reasonable amount of normalcy returns to the city, her biggest fear is not getting a beagle pup to complete her domestic experience. After a deserved bashing of local and state government officials, she gets upset when "idiot Baptists" in Denton, TX unwittingly hand over her homeless, drug-addicted helper to his "wife" who encourages his addiction. Those "idiots," along with a lot of other private and religious groups, were some of the first people to assist folks in New Orleans when the aforementioned public officals failed miserably.
In short, while I read this book I got the feeling that Reed is something of a snob who has her priorities mixed up. Granted, she did quite a bit to help the city get back on its feet such as hosting and helping organize the Rebirth New Orleans benefit. She also handed out food to the many wonderful National Guardsmen who were trying to establish order in a chaotic world, but I kept seeing a bit of arrogance throughout her writing. It's this arrogance that really killed my enjoyment of her book.
Her fairy tale experience of New Orleans is a fun read, but I'm sure the folks who survived Katrina in towns like Waveland, MS and St. Bernard, LA have much more interesting stories that the average reader can more closely identify with. I can't wait until one of them puts out a book.
Rich folks' troubles July 30, 2008
18 out of 19 found this review helpful
This is the story of how Julia Reed found a husband and a house and a home in New Orleans, and what happened during and after Katrina. She is a fine writer, engaging and witty, and the subject matter should be compelling. So why didn't I like this book?
Perhaps it's a flaw in my character, but when someone has the regular services of a maid, and said maid's extended family when throwing cocktail parties for 100, and has a handyman (however drug-addicted) on call, when that person can buy a mansion in the Garden District that has a dining room which holds a table seating twenty-four and proceeds to renovate that mansion with extravagantly expensive materials, I find it difficult to summon up much sympathy when she complains about the costs she's incurring. Nor, when the house is left nearly unscathed by Katrina, can I empathize with her worries about her jewelry and whether her champagne will be ruined by the heat.
It's very odd, because Reed seems like a generous, warm-hearted, fun-loving person, the kind of woman I'd probably like to hang out with. But there's a disconnect that I can't quite fathom between that person and the one who has to keep bending over to pick up the names she's dropping. And that irritated me to the point where I simply could not enjoy her book.
 Marie Antoinette + August 30, 2008
18 out of 22 found this review helpful
I am utterly flabbergasted by the content and tone of Ms. Reed's book. I found it utterly distasteful, not the least bit charming, boring and shallow. She puts Marie Antoinette to shame. I expected to enjoy and love this memoir about New Orleans and Katrina, instead I felt throughout that it should more aptly have been named, "How I Managed to Eat Lavishly, Still Drink My Favorite Champagne and Decorate My New Mansion, as Katrina Wrecked Thousands of Lives Around Me." Ms. Reed's book, replete with recounts of all her grand, costly Katrina gestures (such as buying dinner for 700 National Guardsmen without bothering to ask what the bill would be), and after having her jewelry stolen, remarking that the good thing about having your "serious" jewelry stolen is that "inevitably", its been photographed at parties, so it makes it easier to trace and find it, is a primer for insensitivity, smug self-indulgence and not only bad writing, but bad taste. Even as the dead, bloated bodies floated by her, we are subjected in pitiless detail to her merry non-stop drinking tales and her utter relief at finding sensational restaurants open so that she can eat great meals. HELLO? Perhaps she experienced some other, different Katrina as she is surely not talking about the one we all know about now. Today, as Hurricane Gustav makes its way--possibly--to New Orleans, perhaps it's yet another excuse for Ms. Reed to pop open a cork on some champagne?
Mixed Feelings August 5, 2008
16 out of 18 found this review helpful
This book starts out strong, but loses focus after the drama of the storm. I found myself engaged by the descriptions of Reed's tribulations with her contractor -- "A Year in Provence"-ish. Anyone who's had remodeling done can empathize. But not everyone has had such colorful problems or the means with which to fix them. I never got the feeling that Reed's Katrina experience was any more than an inconvenience, not to downplay her compassion for those who didn't fare as well, but having read more incisive books about the subject recently, I found this one to suffer by comparison.
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