From the outset, Kerr's memoir strikes a chord as it explores the fundamental idea of "home." Having just left sunny Los Angeles for the vibrant, often rambunctious, wear-your-emotions-on-your-sleeve New Orleans, Kerr is desperate to fill the void, the emptiness in her life, and she is willing to leave everything behind to start afresh. Though one would undoubtedly describe Kerr's work as a memoir with Hurricane Katrina front and center, it is far more. Essentially, it is a testament to living life fully, to continue probing for opportunities that make one feel alive, to genuinely be at home in one's skin.

A wild encounter with a woo-woo tarot-card reader who suggests she's not evil enough is Kerr's first glimpse of New Orleans. Despite the eccentric run-in, it makes her feel alive in ways that LA simply could not. As she steps into her present and builds a connection with the city, she makes friends in her role at the university library. Miss Viv, Ginny, and co. create a warm environment, and Kerr begins to see her future reflected in the city, especially as punctuated by her first Mardi Gras in 2003.

Stylistically, the story flows seamlessly as it traverses the years leading up to Katrina and shows how Kerr meets the important people in her life who give her reason to plant roots in New Orleans and call it home. The characters, no matter how small or large their roles may be, all feel incredibly real in their dialogue and actions. In particular, the scene beginning with Kerr meeting Eliot, the jogger she pined for from afar, and ending with him taking her annotated copy of the Bhagavad Gita is full of authentic energy, a tantalizing promise to the reader that life has something in store for Kerr. When the memoir does reach the Katrina portion, it is both riveting and heart-wrenching to see how lives are upended in mere moments, beginning with the fateful Saturday before landfall.

As the memoir progresses, post-Katrina New Orleans becomes emblematic of the turbulence in Kerr's own life. Nevertheless, as with the resilience of the entire city—albeit excluding the few who used Katrina as an excuse for lawlessness—the author demonstrates how lives were pieced back together rather than how they were torn apart. That is what stands out most about this work. It is raw, but it is also a genuine rendition of the human spirit, of real people who faced real battles to restore their lives, to reach a version of home that had become extinct. Kerr's depiction of residents returning to their homes—or to where their homes should have been—is mind-numbing, and, in essence, her work gives voice to the thousands who never had a chance to tell their stories and to how their world was flipped after Katrina.

The author's journey and zest for life continue throughout the memoir. However, New Orleans is etched into her identity, especially the fullness of her experiences prior to Katrina. Perhaps it is even more excruciating, both as the reader and unquestionably the author, that after discovering herself and her sense of home, she is then unceremoniously displaced from that home by an act of nature. At its core, though, Kerr's work is both stellar in its storytelling and true to its historical nature, a thoroughly riveting memoir that proves how the spirit of humanity transcends the worst of disasters and continues to rise above.

RECOMMENDED by the US Review

The 2026 Eric Hoffer Book Award Memoir Category Winner

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