10th anniversary of Hurricane Katrina inspires multimedia novel

An "Elegy for the Lost City," written by a career musician about New Orleans, can't help but be jazzed up, jived, and funkified by the diverse assemblage of world-class players, homey hipsters, and denizens of the Deep South in this “down river Lake Woebegone,” so described in this pre-book release review by Pulitzer Prize-Nominated Playwright and Peabody Award Winner Willy Holtzman.

“Elegy” is cast in the accents and attitudes of New AW-lins, where elongated vowels can take on a life of their own and real life characters like Dr. John and Harry Connick Jr. pop up amid the fictitious inhabitants of this deeply-rooted, dialect-rich place.

A pop culture countdown to the apocalypse with Hurricane Katrina as an allegory for what awaits us all, Goldstein’s “Ficto-Reality” novel is filled with tragic untimely losses mirroring the Storm’s holocaust. Edited by Michael Lydon, founding editor of Rolling Stone and dean of American rock journalists, “Elegy” is set among the music and restaurant worlds of New Orleans and spans the centuries in time-tripping style with the Crescent City as its epicenter. Lydon was enthralled by Goldstein’s “free-flowing prose, peppered with stinging humor,” describing it as “A book to be savored like a spicy crawfish bisque – read it, but be warned of this risk: you may soon feel an overwhelming urge to experience ‘N’awlins,’ not just through Goldstein’s eyes and ears, but by spending a few weeks there yourself.”

“An Elegy for the Lost City” brings a post-modern interpretation to the calamitous events of Hurricane Katrina, where every neighborhood bears the scars of “dat’s not dere no more” and every corner turns on the memory at those who were taken, or still unable to return. Encompassing 300 years of history from D’Iberville to modern day DuFossats, “Elegy“ enters a diverse world of jazz, jambalaya and funk–Jesus, Jews and Buddhism. It’s hushpuppies, crawfish and kreplach, spirits in mystic visions, shape-shifting guides, imaginary friends, and past-life revelation; a spicy world where mystery abounds. In New Orleans’ first satellite outpost of St. Louis, the disparate families of “Elegy,” under the spell of cosmic confluence all share attendance at the most famous and unique event in baseball’s epic storied history, 1961’s “Miracle of the Foul Balls,” featuring Roberto Clemente’s World Champion Pittsburgh Pirates against the Cardinals.

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