A. D.
New Orleans After the Deluge
Neufeld, Josh
Hardcover
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BOOK SYNOPSIS
A.D.: New Orleans After the Deluge is a masterful portrait of a city under siege. Cartoonist Josh Neufeld depicts seven extraordinary true stories of survival in the days leading up to and following Hurricane Katrina.
Here we meet Denise, a counselor and social worker, and a sixth-generation New Orleanian; The Doctor, a proud fixture of the French Quarter; Abbas and Darnell, two friends who face the storm from Abbass family-run market; Kwame, a pastor's son just entering his senior year of high school; and the young couple Leo and Michelle, who both grew up in the city. Each is forced to confront the same wrenching decisionwhether to stay or to flee.
As beautiful as it is poignant, A.D. presents a city in chaos and shines a bright, profoundly human light on the tragedies and triumphs that took place within it.
AUTHOR BIO
Josh Neufeld is the writer/artist of the Xeric Award-winning graphic travelogue A Few Perfect Hours (And Other Stories from Southeast Asia & Central Europe). Shortly after Hurricane Katrina, Neufeld spent three weeks as an American Red Cross volunteer in Biloxi, Mississippi. The blog entries he kept about that experience turned into a self-published book, Katrina Came Calling, which in turn led to A.D. Neufeld works primarily in the realm of nonfiction comics. His work has been featured in The Vagabonds, Keyhole, and Titans of Finance, as well as in numerous comics anthologies, newspapers, magazines, and literary journals. He is a longtime artist for Harvey Pekars American Splendor, and his art has been exhibited in gallery and museum shows in the United States and Europe. Neufeld lives in Brooklyn, New York, with his wife, the writer Sari Wilson, and their daughter.
BOOK REVIEWS
"Unforgettable, breathtaking chronicle of New Orleans before, during and after Katrina. I guarantee you will hungrily devour this beautiful, heartbreaking project."
Glen Weldon, NPR
A.D. is one of the best-ever examples of comics reportage, and one of the clearest portraits of post-Katrina New Orleans yet published. An essential addition to the ongoing conversation about what Katrina means, and what New Orleans means.
Dave Eggers, author of Zeitoun and What Is the What
American Splendor artist Neufeld beautifully depicts the lives of seven New Orleans residents who survived Hurricane Katrina. In the dialogue-free opening chapter, The Storm, Neufeld powerfully intersperses images of the hurricane gathering speed with the cities it crippled when it hit Louisiana on August 29, 2005, specifically New Orleans and Biloxi, Miss. Readers are then introduced to seven New Orleans residents, from all walks of life and parts of the city. Denise and her familymother Louise, niece Cydney and Cydneys daughter, Rnaejoin thousands of hungry and thirsty New Orleanians waiting to be evacuated after their apartment is destroyed. Leo, the publisher of a local music zine, and Michelle, a waitress, reluctantly leave the city for Houston and are devastated when their apartment (and Leos impressive comics collection) is flooded. Other characters flee, or try unsuccessfully to ride out the storm. Neufelds low-key art brings a deeply humanizing element to the story. Though the devastation caused by the hurricane and the governments lackluster response are staggering, Neufeld expertly underscores the resilience of the people who returned to rebuild their lives and their city.
Publishers Weekly (starred review)*
"Graphic artist Neufeld paints an emotive portrait of New Orleans during and after Hurricane Katrina. . . . the braided story of seven people involved in the eventsthree tell of their exodus and the after-effects, four ride out the storm and its wake at homeprovides an intimate appreciation of their frazzled emotional states in response to varied tribulations. . . . Neufelds words and images are commensurable and rhythmic, and the vernacular is sharp. Bristling with attitude and pungent with social awareness."
Kirkus
"Josh Neufeld is a master story teller. A.D. is intimate and yet seismic in its scope. Through six finely drawn lives, we end up with new understanding of both devastation and redemption. His art takes us to the depth of the humanity of those we cherish."
Cornel West
"Who'd have thought that after watching all that video we'd come upon a fresh visual way to experience Hurricane Katrina? Josh Neufeld's drawingsand his tender, dead-honest dialogue brought it all back in a way that made me feel it in my gut."
Dan Baum, author of Nine Lives: Death and Life in New Orleans
I particularly liked the combination of economy and strength in Neufelds work. His two-page spreads are very nice. And his use of varied colors for different chapters helps keep the reader involved.
Harvey Pekar
"A.D.'s stunning panels retell the harrowing experience of what it was like to live through the disaster.
Rolling Stone
"Raw and painful, down to the detailed depictions of ruined homes and the frenzied dialogue among friends.
Newsweek
"Referring to A.D. as a comic book' is a bit like calling Schindler's List a talkie.'
Los Angeles Times
"[A.D.]'s stirring images are sure to linger in memory, perhaps even longer than hours of news footage already have."
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
"Accessible, informative and beautifully drawn"
USA Today's "PopCandy"
A.D. is a sterling example of comics with a social consciousness, and is exactly the kind of thing we need to keep the human dimension of this unimaginable disaster and its ongoing aftermath in the public eye.
Wired.com
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MORE BOOK INFO
ISBN: 0307378144
ISBN(13-digit): 9780307378149
Dewey Decimal: 976.3/350640922
Library of Congress: 2008055687
Book Publisher: Random House Inc
Language: ENG
No. of Pages: 193
Paper Weight (lb): 1.8 lb
