Wading Home: A Novel of New Orleans
With the lyricism she was lauded for in More Than You Know, Story has crafted a post-Katrina New Orleans from a fumy cloud of sad jazz and Creole spices. Though this time out her descriptive lushness meshes uneasily with the patchy, if intense, tone and plot. After the storm, Julian Fortier, a successful trumpeter, returns to look for his missing father and ends up dealing with drama: family land is threatened by developers; a past betrayal is dredged up; he's confronted with a failed romance. Amidst all this he navigates his devastated city, confronting the emotional and professional mess of his life both present and past and the more immediate problems left by the storm. Everyone he encounters is boldly drawn, and Julian's father is fantastically sympathetic, but Julian himself, the sulky center of it all, only drags things down. Readers will feel a palpable sense of frustration as plotlines sag after initial tension and the pathos and beauty of the Big Easy becomes abstract, explained more than evoked. Story has created a fine narrative web, peopled it with some skill, and brought her style and grace to the page, but none of these elements feel complete. (Sept.) (c)Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.