Rising Action: Mama Ya-Ya’s health deteriorates quickly as her inability to see beyond the storm to the devastation that will follow. It is late August and Hurricane Katrina is on the horizon.Ĭonflict: The storm itself is the main element of conflict in this story as Lanesha, TaShon and Spot team up to brave its worst. Both have the gift of seeing into the spirit world and the 17 year-old spirit of Lanesha’s mother is often present. The story is a joy to read despite the tragedy it relates.Įxposition: Lanesha is an orphan-girl who is being raised by elderly Mama Ya-Ya, the midwife who birthed her. Short, long, up and down, back and forth. She seems to soothe and calm the reader with the rhythm and cadence of her sentences. Rhodes has the ability to soften the harsh story of Katrina with her musical words. ~ ~ ~ “I should be putting you to bed,” she says. And I love how Mama Ya-Ya says my name - “Lanesha.” Soft, with the ah sound going on forever. It made me laugh out loud sometimes, too.Jewell Parker Rhodes creates authentic conversations between characters whose names roll easily off the tongue. The history of the Desire project is very interesting, and I enjoyed reading the interviews. The book taught me about second lines, and it also taught me a little about how Katrina affected the culture of the city. I could go to the corner and jump on the bus and be in the ninth ward.

The people in this book are similar to the people I work with, and in one case one of the people in the book is actually the nephew of one of our regular customers. I found it to be a really interesting insight into the Ninth Ward and also other parts of town- I wasn't aware that the city was divided into Uptown/Downtown until reading this book, or what the differences were between the two. The reason for this was that I wanted to stretch out my appreciation as I felt I was going to develop over time myself, having lived in New Orleans for three years now. I found this book in the bookshelf at my house (a previous tenant had left it there, don't know who), and read a few pages at a time over about six months. It's impossible to to justice to this book in a review so I'll just say a few words about what it meant to me.

Ninth ward book