Getting Off at Elysian Fields

Getting Off at Elysian Fields
Author :
Publisher : Univ. Press of Mississippi
Total Pages : 484
Release :
ISBN-10 : 9781496803764
ISBN-13 : 1496803760
Rating : 4/5 (760 Downloads)

Book Synopsis Getting Off at Elysian Fields by : John Pope

Download or read book Getting Off at Elysian Fields written by John Pope and published by Univ. Press of Mississippi. This book was released on 2015-10-19 with total page 484 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: No city in America knows how to mark death with more funerary panache than New Orleans. The pageants commemorating departed citizens are often in themselves works of performance art. A grand obituary remains key to this Stygian passage. And no one writes them like New Orleanian John Pope. Collected here are not just simple, mindless recitations of schools and workplaces, marriages, and mourners bereft. These pieces in Getting Off at Elysian Fields: Obituaries from the New Orleans “Times-Picayune” are full-blooded life stories with accounts of great achievements, dubious dabblings, unavoidable foibles, relationships gone sour, and happenstances that turn out to be life-changing. To be sure, there are stories about Carnival monarchs, great philanthropists, and a few politicians. But because New Orleans embraces eccentric behavior, there are stories of people who colored way outside the lines. For instance, there was the doctor who used his plasma to make his flowers grow, and the philanthropist who took money she had put aside for a fur coat to underwrite the lawsuit that desegregated Tulane University. A letter carrier everyone loved turned out to have been a spy during World War II, and a fledgling lawyer changed his lifelong thoughts about race when he saw blind people going into a Christmas party through separate doors—one for white people and another for African Americans. Then there was the punctilious judge who got down on his hands and knees to edge his lawn—with scissors. Because New Orleans funerals are distinctive, the author includes accounts of four that he covered, complete with soulful singing and even some dancing. As a popular, local bumper sticker indisputably declares, “New Orleans—We Put the Fun in Funeral.”


Getting Off at Elysian Fields Related Books

Getting Off at Elysian Fields
Language: en
Pages: 484
Authors: John Pope
Categories: Biography & Autobiography
Type: BOOK - Published: 2015-10-19 - Publisher: Univ. Press of Mississippi

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

No city in America knows how to mark death with more funerary panache than New Orleans. The pageants commemorating departed citizens are often in themselves wor
Last Car to Elysian Fields
Language: en
Pages: 349
Authors: James Lee Burke
Categories: Fiction
Type: BOOK - Published: 2003-09-23 - Publisher: Simon and Schuster

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

Sheriff Dave Robicheaux returns to New Orleans to investigate the beating of a controversial Catholic priest and murder of three teenage girls in this intense,
Elysian Fields
Language: en
Pages: 399
Authors: Mark Gregory LaFlaur
Categories: Fiction
Type: BOOK - Published: 2013 - Publisher:

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

Named to Kirkus Reviews' Best Books of 2013. * Winner of rare "double crown" of starred reviews from both Publishers Weekly and Kirkus Reviews. * Publishers Wee
Disgraceland
Language: en
Pages: 226
Authors: Jake Brennan
Categories: Music
Type: BOOK - Published: 2019-10-01 - Publisher: Grand Central Publishing

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

From the creator of the popular rock 'n' roll true crime podcast, Disgraceland comes an off-kilter, hysterical, at times macabre book inspired by true stories f
When Blanche Met Brando
Language: en
Pages: 438
Authors: Sam Staggs
Categories: Biography & Autobiography
Type: BOOK - Published: 2006-07-25 - Publisher: Macmillan

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

The story behind the creation of Tennessee Williams's iconic play is partially drawn from interviews with surviving live performance cast members, shares insigh