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Patty Friedmann New Orleans fiction author
and Hurricane Katrina survivor...
Except for education and natural disasters, I've always lived
in New Orleans. That's the only part of my bio anyone needs
to know. As a writer, I need to be here to hear the voices
on the streets-and, yes, in my head. My work is darkly comical,
and New Orleans is an engaging old lady in every story, a
beauty past her prime who still looks in mirrors, unaware
that she's ravaged, even now, too preoccupied with her looks
ever to have taken care of her goofy children. I don't write
about the New Orleans others limn, the political posturing,
the accents with no final g's, the Mardi Gras beads hanging
from rearview mirrors. Mine is the world of Confederacy
of Dunces. The storm lifted the board and showed the
termites underneath here, but I'm still not sure anybody gets
us. We're the only city in the world with a collective sense
of humor and irony, and that's all anyone needs to know when
reading one of my books. |
