Book Review

Nine Lives

By Dan Baum

Rating: 4

Nine Lives by Dan Baum is a book that interviews nine residents of New Orleans before, during and after Hurricane Betsy and Katrina. The backgrounds of the people were diverse and different as night and day.

I liked Wilbert Rawlins, Jr., a no-nonsense black man who was a father figure to boys who were fatherless or parentless. Billy Grace was an interesting man who cracked into high society from a working class background. He never digressed from his roots, seeing the snobby and bigoted side of the who’s who of New Orleans. I most identified with Joann Guidos, a male to female transsexual. I am a gender variant person who started out as a cross dress to where I am now a transsexual. Joann kept me interested in reading this book.

What interested me in this book is the city. I wanted to travel to New Orleans before Katrina. Now I want to go there more than ever. From what I read in Nine Lives, there’s still much work to be done especially in the Ninth Ward.

I felt as if I was in New Orleans when Katrina near wiped out the city. I could feel Wil Rawlins' intensity and as he tried to keep a ragtag bunch of kids together. I felt as if I was there with him. I felt the same way about Billy Grace and especially Joann Guidos.

What I enjoyed reading Nine Lives is that the people interviewed spoke in their own narrative. Each character was so different and having someone else speak for them who have done a grave injustice to them, I believe.I rate this book a four because I love being involved with the characters. They were people we all can identity with in some way.

~ Genevieve