Product Description

From the house author and long-time favorite "writer's writer," the effortlessly smart, deliriously off-kilter story of an extended New Orleans family trying to reclaim a shadow of their former selves

Mary Robison, author of Why Did I Ever-winner of the Los Angeles Times Book Prize for Fiction, a New York Times Notable Book, and Book Sense 76 Pick- has written a new novel that is certain to gather as much attention and wild acclaim.

The story opens on Jay, a location scout for a movie production company. It's the easiest job in the world; at the end of the day, she says, they should just ask her how it went and say "Super. Sounds like you had a good time." She is complacently married to Alt, who has just been diagnosed with a grave illness and gone back to his palatial family home, back to the care of his parents. Which is just fine with Jay-or so she tells herself at the start. But standing left of center of this still prosperous but mortally wounded family does not get easier as the weeks wear on. As she tries to negotiate her way around the anger of Saunders, Alt's despised twin brother; maintain her friendship with Petal, his beautiful wife; and protect what's left of the innocence of Collie, the niece caught in the middle, Jay finds more than the Louisiana heat getting to be oppressive.

With her trademark biting humor and breathtaking facility with language, Mary Robison thus sets the stage for a beguiling Southern Gothic sure to delight both her fanatical following and new readers alike.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #79208 in Books
• Published on: 2009-03-01
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Hardcover
• 176 pages

Features

• ISBN13: 9781582433059
• Condition: NEW
• Notes: Brand New from Publisher. No Remainder Mark.
• Click here to view our Condition Guide and Shipping Prices

From Publishers Weekly
With a laconic voice and a despairing sense of humor, film location scout Eve Broussard narrates award-winning Robison's (Why Did I Ever) grim yet witty novella about the dissolution of a family and a city in the wake of Hurricane Katrina. Eve and unstable-but-armed Petal are married to 42-year-old twins, Adam and Saunders, who—not unlike the two black swans forever circling the statue commemorating their sister's suicide—spin their nearly identical lives aimlessly: drinking, fretting over hepatitis C and hording cocaine in their parents' stately New Orleans mansion. This family's Big Easy is a world where lush excess and harsh deprivation work side-by-side to create a malaise sinister in its paralyzing appeal. Told in terse, numbered passages, Robison's narrative is jumpy but effective, interspersed with and informed by startling statistics (More than 50 former NOPD officers are in prison, 2 on death row). Distilled episodes of mistaken identity, marriage trouble and potential infidelity build to a crucial decision for Eve, who may be damned if she does, damned if she doesn't. (Mar.)
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From The New Yorker
Robison could work for a food or drug packager: she squeezes dire warnings into tiny spaces. Her new novel, at a hundred and sixty-six pages, broken into two hundred and twenty-five numbered chapters, recounts an unkempt marriage between Eve, a movie location scout, and the dying Adam; her ongoing affair with Adam’s twin brother, Saunders; her concerns for a mental-patient in-law, Petal; and car trips with a doltish intern-colleague, Lucien. And then there are lists, quoting gun-holster catalogues, private promises (“I’m never again wearing anything bought at Lowe’s”), and late news about post-Katrina New Orleans (“The rate of Armed Robbery is up 1,022 percent”), where all this is coming down. The book can be read in half an afternoon, leaving plenty of room for afterthoughts about Robison’s funny and heartbreaking conversations, which run short because both sides can barely contain their impatience or intelligence or high (both ways) private style.
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From Booklist
New Orleans was weird before Katrina. Add significant population loss, destruction, and bumbling relief efforts, and the situation becomes even more precarious. Robison’s protagonist works as a location scout. She knows the ins and outs of New Orleans—its buildings, alleys, and emotions—yet she says, “New Orleans is full of meanings I haven’t learned.” No matter how long a city has been home, parts remain elusive. Add to that a family falling apart and the horrid aftermath of Katrina, and Robison’s New Orleans becomes utterly incomprehensible, perhaps unlivable. Within this incomprehensibility, Robison eloquently reveals the dissolution of a family. The struggles of post-Katrina New Orleans are ever present throughout the novel, but Robison shows that families can and do fall apart anywhere. The southern novel’s bread and butter are rich descriptions, thick as humidity and Spanish moss. Robison takes the opposite approach, relying on terse, efficient vignettes that, despite their brevity, achieve a similar effect: haunting images that crawl all over each other, leaving a mishmash of confusion and satisfaction. --Blair Parsons

Customer Reviews

Well worth the wait
The book was set originally for publication in spring 2005, then Katrina hit, apparently sending Ms. Robison back to the galleys (I know because I've had an Amazon availability alert for this since at least that time). It's arguable that any novel set in today's New Orleans can avoid at least a passing nod at the catastrophe. Ms. Robison has artfully woven the disaster into her narrative, but just enough so the reader knows it's there, ever omnipresent.

Otherwise, "One D.O.A...." is vintage Robison: full of arch humor, absurdist situations, subtly revealed characters, searing imagery and punch-in-the gut dialogue.

It's a quirky ride through the backwaters of post-Katrina New Orleans and the mindset it has apparently left in its wake.

I love New Orleans
I spent part of my misspent youth in New Orleans, came out alive, and this book really captures the chaotic, hedonistic sadness that New Orleans, even before Katrina, is to me. I loved it.

One D.O.A., One on the Way
This was a very differently written book than most stories. It was written with minimal talking between charactors. I thought the ending was the best part. It was an odd book not for everyones' taste.