Review: A.D. New Orleans After The Deluge by Josh Neufeld

2John Seven • 24th Sep 2009 • Book Articles, Comics • Bush administration, Hurricane Katrina, Josh Neufeld, New Orleans

Like a Biblical fury, Hurricane Katrina came down on New Orleans to wash away the sins — or at least that’s how some looked at it. More reasonable people understand that humankind is filled with moments of foibles as well as moments of good.

In Josh Neufeld’s work of graphic journalism, “A.D. New Orleans After The Deluge,” that storm and its effects are examined, warts and all. The book reveals to what degree government glides on the positivism of its citizens and to what level that protective relationship might well have cut the citizens off from the realities of the world without the authoritative bosom.

Neufeld built the five different stories contained in the book from interviews with the actual people involved. The experiences run the gamut, from Leo and Michelle, who watch the flood from the sidelines but lose almost everything, to Denise, who stays behind through family necessity and experiences the fury of the displaced firsthand, and on to Abbas and Darnell, who stupidly decide to wait out the storm and have an adventure and instead find themselves in real danger, thanks to the fury of nature.

Neufeld uses the different stories — which also involve a minister’s son who escapes and a doctor who sticks around for glib reasons and finds himself of use in the aftermath — to arrange the events of the storm in chronological order, mixing history with narrative. This puts a face on many of the events we’ve all heard so much about and adds some mystery through the personal experience.

What happened with Katrina stands as one of the greatest failings of the Bush administration, a huge blot even if one can muster any sort of support for its other blunders. Through Neufeld’s pen, though, it is not a black-and-white examination that throws everything at the administration and nothing anywhere else. Why would some people choose not to leave an area like New Orleans in the face of a hurricane? Did this disconnect from reality add to the confusion that piled on the problems later? And is it realistic to expect anything from a government that has already failed the people?

These are some of the big questions that Neufeld asks, as well as the smaller ones, most importantly what is the measure of loss — is it something that is only qualifiable to the specific loser?

It’s a powerful document of a dark moment in recent history and does well in adding some understanding to an event that will probably always be burdened by a mysterious nature.

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