The first meeting of the BooBooks book club will convene this coming weekend, starting on Sat., Oct. 22.
That’s not the only reason it promises to be a special event, however. This will also be a rare instance of reading a book after a calamity which that very book predicted. Every line of this book presages the consequences of Katrina. We will discuss this, not only with the wisdom of hindsight, but also from the eerie perspective of foresight.
In preparation for that, I want to mention a few things:
- Come, whether or not you’ve read the book. I will provide a kansas Cliffs Notes version–quick and dirty–both as a review for those of you who have read it and to bring the rest of you up to speed.
- In addition to everybody else who is welcome. . .if you also happen to be a biologist, marine biologist, ornithologist, environmentalist, or just plain somebody who knows Louisiana, y’all come. We could use your knowledge to make sure we get our facts right.
- Those of you who have read it know there are many people and places that Tidwell talks about and if you’re like me, you really want to know what happened to them during or after Katrina. Did they survive? Where are they now? What about their towns, their boats, their families? If any of you readers feel like being investigators and trying to locate some of that info, I think we’d all be very grateful. I’ll do what I can to find out, too.
From the publisher’s website, written in 2000:
ABOUT THIS BOOK 
Mike Tidwell knew nothing of the disappearing bayou country when he first visited the Cajun coast of Louisiana, but the evidence was all around him: the skeletons of oak trees killed by the salinity of the groundwater, whole cemeteries sinking into swampland and out of sight, telephone poles in deep, standing water. Thanks to human hands, the storied Louisiana coast was eroding, subsiding, and joining the Gulf of Mexico—making it the fastest disappearing landmass on Earth. Yet no one seemed to know how to talk about the problem. Tidwell, a celebrated travel and environmental writer, decided to begin the much-needed conversation, and this vivid, elegiac book is the result.
Tidwell introduces us to the surprisingly varied population of the area: the Cajun men and women who work the seasonal shrimp harvest, the Vietnamese fishermen, the Houma Indians driven to the farthest ends of the bayou by the first European settlers. He describes the food, the music, the culture, and the life of all those who live along the bayous. And under his keenly observant eye, the bayou itself becomes a compelling character—reminding us of how much we stand to lose if we fail to address the problems facing this most vibrant of places.
Part travelogue, part environmental exposé, Bayou Farewell is the richly evocative chronicle of the author’s travels through a place and a way of life that are vanishing virtually before our eyes.
*
QUOTES
“Stunning, beautifully written, the best book on Louisiana I have ever read. Tidwell has captured the soul and heart of the Cajun people and describes the loss of their Acadian culture, their beloved wetlands, and their way of life more accurately and poignantly than any other writer I know of.”
-James Lee Burke, author of White Doves at Morning
“A remarkable book…. Tidwell knows how to tell a good story, and he tells this one smartly.”-The Times-Picayune
“Shocking…. The calamity that lies ahead is…underscored by Tidwell’s bittersweet rendering of…a way of life that is slowly dying.”-San Francisco Chronicle
“Passionate…. Tidwelll’s first-person reportage is engaging and well-written… A clarion call for Americans to focus on an unfolding environmental disaster.”-The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
*
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY
Mike Tidwell is the author of four previous books, including In the Mountains of Heaven, Amazon Stranger, and The Ponds of Kalambayi. A former National Endowment for the Arts fellow, Tidwell has published his work in National Geographic Traveler, Reader’s Digest, Washingtonian, and many other publications. His frequent travel articles for the The Washington Post have earned him four Lowell Thomas Awards, the highest prize in American travel journalism. He lives near Washington, D.C., with his wife, Catherine, and their son, Sasha.