Tom Piazza

New Orleans author Tom Piazza explores the culture, traditions, and spirit of his home city, reflecting upon what could be lost in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina and explaining why the city must be saved.

In the heat of late summer, two New Orleans families-one black and one white-confront a storm that will change the course of their lives. SJ Williams, a carpenter and widower, lives and works in the Lower Ninth Ward, the community where he was born and raised. His sister, Lucy, is a soulful mess, and SJ has been trying to keep her son, Wesley, out of trouble. Across town, Craig Donaldson, a Midwestern transplant and the editor of the city's alternative...

Acclaimed author Tom Piazza follows his prize-winning novel City of Refuge and the post-Katrina classic Why New Orleans Matters with a dynamic collection of essays and journalism about American music and American character, in Devil Sent the Rain.

"In time for the one-year anniversary of the Trump Inauguration and the Women's March, this provocative, unprecedented anthology features original short stories from thirty bestselling and award-winning authors--including Alice Walker, Richard Russo, Walter Mosley, Joyce Carol Oates, Alice Hoffman, Neil Gaiman, Michael Cunningham, Mary Higgins Clark, and Lee Child--with an introduction by Pulitzer Prize-winning author Viet Thanh Nguyen"-- This provocative,...

"Over a year has passed since Katrina, but residents are finding it harder than ever to rebuild their lives, much less hold on to their special cultural identity ... So why bother to stay? Because it's New Orleans. And New Orleans must go on."--Container.