Beyond Katrina

Talbot Brewer and the Page-Barbour Lecture Series at the University of Virginia where, in 2007, I presented some sections of this book.

Thanks also to the Virginia Quarterly Review, in whose pages some of this work first appeared, and to Professor

There are many people to whom I owe a great deal of thanks: Ted Genoways, editor of the Virginia Quarterly Review, without whose ideas and encouragement this book would never have been written; Erika Stevens, editor at the University of Georgia Press, whose vision, compassion, and empathy guided me through to the final word; my agent, Rob McQuilkin, whose advice is always just right; Aesha Qawiy, Tamara Jones, Susan Glisson, Tayari Jones, and D. Allen Mitchell—a congregation of supporters whose knowledge and generosity kept me going and who were always willing to talk through anything I asked; all the folks in Mississippi, some named in these pages and some not, who answered graciously my many questions; my husband, Brett, whose ongoing support is immeasurable; and finally, my brother Joe—whose story was always the story.

a few awkward steps at first until
he got it—how to hold up the too-big pants
with one hand, and in the other
carry everything else he had.

The clothes he wore seemed to belong
to someone else, like hand-me-downs
given a child who will one day
grow into them

I recall little else of that day—not the drive to the airport or our short flight back to Atlanta, nor what we did the rest of the evening. Mostly I see the way my brother raised his hand, leaving the courtroom, his back to us—a slight movement, not unlike the fulfillment of my own stalled gesture—as if he were pointing to a destination, some place not far up the road.

what to say. All the clichés come to me now: a stone’s throw away, as the crow flies, and—finally—you can’t get there from here; the library had been destroyed by Hurricane Katrina. Even now, as I write, it hasn’t been rebuilt.

The downtown branch of the Gulfport public library was only a few blocks away, and for a moment I stood there, my hand in the air—a gesture like the beginning of a benediction—before I could think of

Nodding, I turned in the direction of the beach to point them toward it, raising my hand before I caught myself

The simplest of human interactions, like a greeting, it can change the course of a day