The Floating World Lib/E

A dazzling debut about family, home, and grief, The Floating World takes listeners into the heart of Hurricane Katrina with the story of the Boisdorés, whose roots stretch back nearly to the foundation of New Orleans. Though the storm is fast approaching the Louisiana coast, Cora, the family's fragile elder daughter, refuses to leave the city, forcing her parents, Joe Boisdoré, an artist descended from a freed slave who became one of the city's preeminent furniture makers, and his white "Uptown" wife, Dr. Tess Eshleman, to evacuate without her, setting off a chain of events that leaves their marriage in shambles and Cora catatonic--the victim or perpetrator of some violence mysterious even to herself. This mystery is at the center of C. Morgan Babst's haunting, lyrical novel. Cora's sister, Del, returns to New Orleans from the life she has tried to build in New York City to find her hometown in ruins and her family deeply alienated from one another. As Del attempts to figure out what happened to her sister, she must also reckon with the racial history of the city, and the trauma of destruction that was not, in fact, some random act of God, but an avoidable tragedy visited upon New Orleans's most helpless and forgotten citizens.

About the Author :
Christa Lewis, winner of several AudioFile Earphones Awards, is a classically trained actress and a graduate of Boston University's four-year conservatory training program. She has worked full time at the microphone since getting her start as a newsreader for an international news broadcaster and now narrates audiobooks full time. C. Morgan Babst was born and raised in New Orleans and studied writing at Yale with Robert Stone, Kate Walbert, and Amy Bloom. She and her family evacuated New Orleans one day before Hurricane Katrina made landfall. Some months later, at a Katrina benefit in Manhattan, she met a fellow New Orleanian, and she married him. Eleven years later, she returned home to New Orleans to build a life with her husband and young daughter.

Review :
"C. Morgan Babst's portrait of a troubled New Orleans family that fractures further during and after Hurricane Katrina is poetic and suspenseful . . . an ambitious novel." -- "NPR.org" "Powerful . . . Babst is most effective at conveying the emotional weight of the tragedy when she presents it alongside vibrant characters and story lines. One of the most vibrant is the family patriarch, Vincent, whom Babst brings to life in a portrayal that's impressively unrestrained, even Faulknerian." -- "The New York Times Book Review" "Set in New Orleans, this important and powerful novel follows the Boisdoré family . . . in the months after Katrina. A profound, moving and authentically detailed picture of the storm's emotional impact on those who lived through it." -- "People" "This is a spot-on examination of race and the tumult natural disasters leave in their wake." -- "Marie Claire" "This powerful family drama (with a mystery at its core) promises to be an emotional read. A dazzling debut about family, home, and grief, The Floating World takes readers into the heart of Hurricane Katrina with the story of the Boisdorés, whose roots stretch back nearly to the foundation of New Orleans." -- "Paste Magazine"