"WhateverTom Piazza writes is touched with magic." --Douglas Brinkley
Acclaimed author Tom Piazza follows hisprize-winning novel City of Refuge and the post-Katrinaclassic Why New Orleans Matters with a dynamic collection ofessays and journalism about American music and American character, in DevilSent the Rain.
"TomPiazza's writing is filled with energy, and with tender, insightful words forthe brilliant and irascible, from Jimmy Martin to Norman Mailer. Time and timeagain, Piazza identifies the unlikely, precious connections between recentevents, art, letters, and music; through his words, these byways of popularculture provide an unexpected measure of the times." --Elvis Costello
From the heart of the Mississippi Delta to a flooded New Orleans, Piazza confronts the American experience through:
- American Music Masters: From the trailblazing blues of Charley Patton and the yodels of Jimmie Rodgers to the holy ghost genius of Jimmy Martin and Bob Dylan.
- Hurricane Katrina: A clear-eyed, firsthand account of the disaster that exposed the nation's fault lines and the fight to save a great American city.
- New Orleans Culture: An exploration of the city's unique soul, its blend of the sacred and profane, and the animating spark that makes it a crucible of American possibility.
- Literary Titans: Candid encounters with the irascible Norman Mailer and an unflinching look at the writer's life in the shadow of Flaubert.
About the Author :
Tom Piazza is the author of the novels City of Refuge and My Cold War, the post-Katrina manifesto Why New Orleans Matters, the essay collection Devil Sent the Rain, and many other works. He was a principal writer for the HBO drama series Treme and the winner of a Grammy Award for his album notes to Martin Scorsese Presents: The Blues: A Musical Journey. He lives in New Orleans.
Review :
"[H]ot and for real and from the heart . . . Piazza is now truly a poet of place. Reading his book is an emotionally wrenching experience--at times hilarious, at times heartbreaking." - New Orleans Times-Picayune
"Explaining this city's inexorable, gravitational pull to outsiders who see only corruption, crime, poverty, and malarial weather is a tough order, but every page of Piazza's deeply felt story explains a larger truth about why people live where they do: because it's home, and heart." - Washington Post
"To read City of Refuge is to realize that this is what fiction is for: to take us to places the cameras can't go." - Richard Russo, winner of the Pulitzer Prize
"While the characters . . . are fictional and the events are real, writer Piazza makes it feel like it is the other way around. His heroes brim with life, while the city's destruction feels otherworldly. . . . Recreat[es] a piece of our history, through art, in a tribute to what was, and how to go on from here." - New York Post
"Tom Piazza's writing pulsates with nervous electrical tension--reveals the emotions that we can't define." - Bob Dylan
"Tom Piazza's writing is filled with energy and tender, insightful words for the brilliant and irascible, from Jimmy Martin to Norman Mailer. He identifies the unlikely, precious connections between recent events, art, letters, and music; through his words, these byways of popular culture provide an unexpected measure of the times." - Elvis Costello
