The neighborhoods of New Orleans have give n rise to an extraordinary outpouring of important writing. Over the last century and a half or so\, these stories and songs have given the city its singular place in the human imagination. This book leads the reader along five thoroughfares that define different parts of town &ndash\; Royal\, S t. Claude\, Esplanade\, Basin\, and St. Charles &ndash\; to explore how th e writers who lived around them have responded in closely related ways to the environments they share. On the outskirts of New Orleans today\, the c ity's precarious relation to its watery surroundings and the vexed legacie s of race loom especially large. But the city's literature shows us that t hese themes have been near to hand for New Orleans writers for several gen erations\, whether reflected through questions of masquerade\, dreams of e scape\, the innocence of children\, or the power of money or violence or m emory.
\nT. R. Johnson is a Professor of English and Weiss President ial Fellow. He has taught at the University of New Orleans\, Boston Univer sity\, and the University of Louisville\, and has been teaching at Tulane since 2004.
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