Bayou Farewell is an eye-opening book that spells out the trouble of the eroding wetlands of South Louisiana. Many Americans have no idea what is happening to the wetlands of Louisiana so this book teaches everything about it. I felt like this was a very educational and emotional book but it showed just how people are being affected by this horrific problem. Mike Tidwell did an amazing job writing this book; I learned so much from it.
I live in Houma, Louisiana so I have tons of experience with the bayou region of South Louisiana. Everywhere I look in Houma there is a bayou, which is a good and bad thing. With a bayou comes many great things such as Egrets, Spanish Moss, etc. The bad thing about seeing many bayous is that it is a constant reminder that one day, Houma might be a part of the Gulf of Mexico. Also my dad’s side of the family is from Chauvin and Golden Meadow which is not too far from where the real damage of eroding wetlands is. I go down to Chauvin sometimes to visit my Nanny and her husband. I always see houses on stilts because of possible flooding that could come if a hurricane passes through. One of the issues that Mike Tidwell caught my interest was that the wildlife in bayous will one day be diminished into smaller numbers. That is because the eroding land causes brown shrimp, crabs, and other seafood to die out. Many residents in South Louisiana make a living off of seafood so to have most of that industry die out will hurt the economy of South Louisiana. I just found this issue very interesting.
Mike Tidwell introduced many amazing people in Bayou Farewell. One of the people who interested me was the Melancon’s. This family interested me because they remind me of my Maw-Maw and Paw-Paw. Tim makes a liv...
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...d that Bayou Farewell was: “An astounding book that ought to be required reading…Well-researched…Breathtakingly descriptive prose”. Bayou Farewell by Mike Tidwell is an amazing book that everyone should read, I highly recommend it.
Bayou Farewell is a highly educational book, and should be a book all high school/college students should read. I think once people read this book they will be in awe with what is happening to South Louisiana. Many think that the only reason people will be affected by it is because they will eventually have to move away from their homes, but that is not the only reason. Many lives will be destroyed, memories will be lost, and jobs will be lost as well. Bayou Farewell is an amazing book that will change people’s perspective on South Louisiana, and maybe because of the book people will start to take notice of what is going on down here.
The fourth Chapter of Estella Blackburn’s non fiction novel Broken lives “A Fathers Influence”, exposes readers to Eric Edgar Cooke and John Button’s time of adolescence. The chapter juxtaposes the two main characters too provide the reader with character analyses so later they may make judgment on the verdict. The chapter includes accounts of the crimes and punishments that Cooke contended with from 1948 to 1958. Cooke’s psychiatric assessment that he received during one of his first convictions and his life after conviction, marring Sally Lavin. It also exposes John Button’s crime of truancy, and his move from the UK to Australia.
A storm such as Katrina undoubtedly ruined homes and lives with its destructive path. Chris Rose touches upon these instances of brokenness to elicit sympathy from his audience. Throughout the novel, mental illness rears its ugly head. Tales such as “Despair” reveal heart-wrenching stories emerging from a cycle of loss. This particular article is concerned with the pull of New Orleans, its whisper in your ear when you’ve departed that drags you home. Not home as a house, because everything physical associated with home has been swept away by the storm and is now gone. Rather, it is concerned with home as a feeling, that concept that there is none other than New Orleans. Even when there is nothing reminiscent of what you once knew, a true New Orleanian will seek a fresh start atop the foundation of rubbish. This is a foreign concept for those not native to New Orleans, and a New Orleanian girl married to a man from Atlanta found her relationship split as a result of flooding waters. She was adamant about staying, and he returned to where he was from. When he came back to New Orleans for her to try and make it work, they shared grim feelings and alcohol, the result of which was the emergence of a pact reminiscent of Romeo and Juliet. This couple decided they would kill themselves because they could see no light amongst the garbage and rot, and failure was draining them of any sense of optimism. She realized the fault in this agreement,
The book “A Long Way From Chicago” is an adventurous and funny story. The story takes place at Joey Dowdel’s Grandmothers farm house in the country. Joey and his sister Mary Alice were sent to their Grandma’s house during the summer because their parents had to go to Canada for their work. At first, Joey felt uncomfortable with his Grandmother because he had never met her before but eventually he got to know her and they became close friends.
There are many ways in which we can view the history of the American West. One view is the popular story of Cowboys and Indians. It is a grand story filled with adventure, excitement and gold. Another perspective is one of the Native Plains Indians and the rich histories that spanned thousands of years before white discovery and settlement. Elliot West’s book, Contested Plains: Indians, Goldseekers and the Rush to Colorado, offers a view into both of these worlds. West shows how the histories of both nations intertwine, relate and clash all while dealing with complex geological and environmental challenges. West argues that an understanding of the settling of the Great Plains must come from a deeper understanding, a more thorough knowledge of what came before the white settlers; “I came to believe that the dramatic, amusing, appalling, wondrous, despicable and heroic years of the mid-nineteenth century have to be seen to some degree in the context of the 120 centuries before them” .
Initially, Elisabeth is the matriarch of the four generations of women talked about in the story. Elisabeth works in the house, but she’s married to a field slave and has three daughters. Not much insight is given on Elisabeth and her feelings, yet through the narration it is as if she lived vicariously through her youngest daughter, Suzette: “It was as if her mother were the one who had just had her first communion not Suzette” (20) Even though Elisabeth too worked in the house, Suzette had more privileges than her mother and the other slaves. Elisabeth represented the strength and the pride of her people: “You have a mother and a father both, and they don’t live up to the [plantation] house” (25). She would constantly remind Suzette of her real family, which signifies the remembrance of a history of people and their roots. It is up to Suzette to keep the heritage even through the latter miscegenation of the generations to come.
David W. Blight's book Beyond the Battlefield: Race, Memory and the American Civil War, is an intriguing look back into the Civil War era which is very heavily studied but misunderstood according to Blight. Blight focuses on how memory shapes history Blight feels, while the Civil War accomplished it goal of abolishing slavery, it fell short of its ultimate potential to pave the way for equality. Blight attempts to prove that the Civil War does little to bring equality to blacks. This book is a composite of twelve essays which are spilt into three parts. The Preludes describe blacks during the era before the Civil War and their struggle to over come slavery and describes the causes, course and consequences of the war. Problems in Civil War memory describes black history and deals with how during and after the war Americans seemed to forget the true meaning of the war which was race. And the postludes describes some for the leaders of black society and how they are attempting to keep the memory and the real meaning of the Civil War alive and explains the purpose of studying historical memory.
In Green Grass, Running Water by Thomas King, King intertwines stories to create a satire that pokes fun at Indian culture compared to European culture. The book attempts to also poke fun at Judeo-Cristian beliefs by examining the creation story. King makes fun of the story of Adam and Eve. He pokes fun at western civilization and government. Although the book made me laugh some of the meanings behind kings writing puzzled me and made me question king's motives. The book is truly a puzzle that can be hard to decipher for most. I found the book to be challenging but entertaining and interesting.
Throughout a lifetime, one can run through many different personalities that transform constantly due to experience and growing maturity, whether he or she becomes the quiet, brooding type, or tries out being the wild, party maniac. Richard Yates examines acting and role-playing—recurring themes throughout the ages—in his fictional novel Revolutionary Road. Frank and April Wheeler, a young couple living miserably in suburbia, experience relationship difficulties as their desire to escape grows. Despite their search for something different, the couple’s lack of communication causes their planned move to Europe to fall through. Frank and April Wheeler play roles not only in their individual searches for identity, but also in their search for a healthy couple identity; however, the more the Wheelers hide behind their desired roles, the more they lose sense of their true selves as individuals and as a pair.
Michael MacDonald’S All Souls is a heart wrenching insider account of growing up in Old Country housing projects located in the south of Boston, also known as Southie to the locals. The memoir takes the reader deep inside the world of Southie through the eyes of MacDonald. MacDonald was one of 11 children to grow up and deal with the many tribulations of Southie, Boston. Southie is characterized by high levels of crime, racism, and violence; all things that fall under the category of social problem. Social problems can be defined as “societal induced conditions that harms any segment of the population. Social problems are also related to acts and conditions that violate the norms and values found in society” (Long). The social problems that are present in Southie are the very reasons why the living conditions are so bad as well as why Southie is considered one of the poorest towns in Boston. Macdonald’s along with his family have to overcome the presence of crime, racism, and violence in order to survive in the town they consider the best place in the world.
A Gathering of Old Men by Earnest J. Gaines is a great novel about race relations in the south. The novel begins with a child narrator who relates the report that there has been a shooting on a Louisiana plantation, and a white, Cajun farmer Beau Boutan, is dead. He has been killed in the yard of an old black worker, Mathu. Because of the traditional conflict between Cajuns and blacks in South Louisiana, the tension in the situation and the fear of the black people is immediately felt in the novel. I would definitely recommend this book to someone else.
In the story "So Much Water So Close To Home" a young girl is raped, killed and found in a river where four men are fishing. What makes this story interesting is that after discovering the body they did not report it until after they left, three days later. When one of the men who discovered her, the husband of the narrator, Stuart returns home he doesn't tell his wife about the incident until the following morning. Because of this, Claire believes that all men are responsible for the murder of the girl. Due to these facts she acts irrationally, suspiciously, and with distrust not only towards her husband, but also to all men in general.
... the national 16 percent. Furthermore, homelessness has recently dropped to 2,400 people per night, still higher than the amount that existed before Hurricane Katrina struck, but significantly lower than the 11,000 immediately after the storm. This is largely due to the lack of affordable housing in the area, the last of the previous five large public housing complexes demolished in May 2013. Louisiana is trying to increase the number of individuals moving to the state through major factors such as job growth, particularly in the petrochemical and natural gas industries, which will be part of the 42,000 new job openings in southeast Louisiana in the next six years. However, “the city remains incredibly poor, jobs and income vary dramatically by race, rents are up, public transportation is down, and most public education has been converted into charter schools.”
Louisiana is not dead. The state has been plagued by pollution, abused by politicians, and abandoned by those who call it home, yet Louisiana has managed to survive. As Louisiana citizens, we cannot deny the severity of the state’s situation. If left as it is, Louisiana’s future is unquestionably bleak. Bob Mann realizes and emphasizes the direness of Louisiana’s condition in his column “Let’s Face Facts: Louisiana is Sick and Dying”. He emphasizes the grave state that Louisiana has succumbed to and seems to firmly believe that Louisiana’s downfall is inevitable. He is wrong. Many like Mann who have recognized the repetitive cycle of ignorance among Louisiana citizens have lost all hope of their being salvation for the state. Louisiana may
Fink, Sheri. "Hurricane Katrina: after the flood." The Gaurdian. N.p., 7 Feb. 2014. Web. 17 Apr. 2014.
other again and again. The setting is one of decay; the dying Old South and the dying DuBois