New Atlantis: Musicians Battle for the Survival of New Orleans by John Swenson (Oxford University Press)

Now in paperback!  

At its most intimate level, music heals our emotional wounds and inspires us. At its most public, it unites people across cultural boundaries. But can it rebuild a city? That’s the central question posed in New Atlantis, journalist John Swenson’s beautifully detailed account of the musical artists working to save America’s most colorful and troubled metropolis: New Orleans.

“New Atlantis is a fast-moving hybrid of richly detailed journalism and compelling partisan memoir.”
— David Fricke, Rolling Stone

“A solid, rewarding book.”
— Kirkus Reviews

“An all-inclusive and engrossing study of New Orleans music and life in the wake of Hurricane Katrina. Highly recommended.”
— Library Journal

“This intimate portrait of a city that lost so much yet still has so much to offer captures the resiliency of its inhabitants and their stubborn determination to never give up.”
— Booklist

“Intimate, intelligent and passionate… Swenson’s concern for the future of the music culture is as personal as it is journalistic – probably more so – and reading him, you can’t help but care, too.”
— The Times-Picayune

“The eloquent central narrative beautifully evokes New Orleans, alongside interviews with those who, like the Neville Brothers and Big Chief Monk Boudreaux, lived through the deluge, scraped out the sludge and faced down the National Guard.”
— Financial Times