My New Orleans, Gone Away
A Memoir of Loss and Renewal
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4.3 • 14 Ratings
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- $12.99
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- $12.99
Publisher Description
A New York Times bestseller: A “charming” memoir of growing up Jewish among New Orleans high society—and finding a place in the bigger world (Winston Groom, The Wall Street Journal).
The Wolf family had been in New Orleans for generations. They were Jewish but—as Peter Wolf’s grandmother put it—“not in an obvious way.” In fact, they threw lavish Christmas parties to entertain Peter’s father’s friends in the cotton business and even put up a tree. But despite their success and their philanthropic work, the Wolfs were always excluded from NOLA’s inner circles, elite clubs, and high-status Mardi Gras krewes.
It took a detour to New England—where Peter attended Exeter and Yale, and met friends like Calvin Trillin—to put the young man in touch with his cultural roots, and an adventurous adult life beyond the Big Easy to see the corruption, insularity, and racism that lurked beneath the cultural and culinary delights of his home. With a fond heart and a clear, candid view, Wolf offers this reminiscence of his childhood in Metairie, Louisiana, and the unique social hierarchies of New Orleans, with its old Creole families and residents both rich and poor.
A meditation on place and identity, this is “a loving and beautifully written portrait of New Orleans in the 1950s and 1960s” and a look at a landscape that was shifting and disappearing even before Hurricane Katrina altered it forever (Booklist).
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Architecture historian Wolf recalls his youth in New Orleansand the changes his native city experienced in the latter half of the 20th century. Wolf's ancestors arrived in the 1830s, founding cotton, sugar, retail, and other industries, creating a network of prominent Jewish civic leaders. He revisits a materially privileged yet emotionally impoverished childhood, sharing tales about his beloved Dalmatian who he eventually has to bury in the yard. His father sent him north to prep school at Exeter in order to ready him for Yale, where he became friends with cultural-critic-to-be Calvin Trillin. After an unsuccessful foray into medical school, Wolf returns home to his father's once-flourishing cotton brokerage. He does well, but his heart rebels and he attends graduate school part-time at Tulane. But instead of remaining comfortably unfulfilled in New Orleans, he heads back north to study his passion, architecture, at NYU, becoming a leading figure in land planning and urban policy. Wolf's journey from inhibited child to dream-chaser is beautifully told, full of love for New Orleans, tradition, and family, all trumped by the angst-filled awakening that led him forward.
Customer Reviews
Memories of Growing Up
This was a great read! I am from Louisiana Born and raised in Crowley but and have lived in Lafayette for better than half of my life.
I was familiar with the names and places mentioned in the book which brought back wonderful memories of my childhood growing up in the 60s
This is a wonderfully written book anyone from South Louisiana and especially New Orleans would enjoy reading to bring back memories of what probably was the best time of life in the 21st-century
Randy Simon