The House on First Street

Book excerpt: “Reed recounts with humor [post Katrina] home-improvement nightmares in a story that is part ‘Money Pitt’ and part love letter to her adopted home town.” —Washington Post, Front Page Feature After fifteen years of living like a vagabond on her reporter's schedule, Julia Reed got married and bought a house in the historic Garden District of New Orleans. Four weeks after she moved in, Hurricane Katrina struck. Rich with sumptuous details and with the author's trademark humor, The House on First Street is the chronicle of a remarkable and often hilarious homecoming, as well as a thoroughly original tribute to our country's most original city. “What emerges from a heartrending, soul-stirring, rib-tickling and palate-prickling banquet of details is why Ms. Reed cannot leave New Orleans: love. It’s an undeceived devotion to a place and particularity that is admirable, and almost astonishing, in our increasingly deracinated culture.” —Wall Street Journal “Reed shares this sliver of her life with a light, conversational tone, and though somewhat tangential, she conveys the richness of pace and flavor of the Big Easy as life gets back to ‘normal’ without pretense.” —Christian Science Monitor “Reed is a breezy writer who nicely captures the despair and elation of seeing the city slowly come back to life.” —Chicago Sun-Times “With her usual keen eye for the quirky and outrageous, Reed finds much to amuse the reader in this delightful volume.” —Cokie Roberts, ABC and NPR News, author of Ladies of Liberty “With great literary panache and a throaty humor, Julia Reed captures the magical allure of the city, its food and its people . . . destined to be a classic.” —Walter Issacson, bestselling author of Einstein and Elon Musk