Ellis Anderson

This was a nominee for the Mississippi Library Asociation's Author Award. I was not one of the committee members assigned to read it during our review period, but it was our non-fiction winner, so when I was asked to introduce the author at the award banquet I decided to read it. I'll include an editied version of my introduction in lieu of a review:

I am especially pleased to have the honor of introducing, Ellis Anderson, the author of our non-fiction award winner, Under Surge, Under Siege.

August 29, 2005. I would wager all of us here have a Katrina story. I hope most of us do not have a Katrina story like those told in this book. Under Surge, Under Siege is part memoir, part journalism. What became a book were in the beginning emails to reassure and inform friends and family, which grew into a blog of essays (called Katrina Patina), which told the stories of the days following the storm. The book has been described as gripping, riveting, remarkable, yet it is also lyrical and lovingly written.

One of our award committee members commented that she couldn't put down the book once she began reading. There is that compelling element to the book; one wants to know what happens next, whose story she'll tell us next. For me, I found I couldn't read too much at one time, for the same reason that it was over a year until I could drive down Beach Boulevard again following Katrina: it is just too heartbreaking, even six years later, to think of the loss, to remember places which no longer exist. This book appeals to both types of readers.

The Mississippi Library Association is not alone in recognizing Ms. Anderson's work. Among numerous nominations, Under Siege, Under Surge received the 2010 Eudora Welty Book Award, presented by the Mississippi University for Women and the University Press of Mississippi, for a book of scholarship on women's studies, Southern studies, or modern letters. Ms. Anderson was also awarded a Mississippi Arts Commission Fellowship for Literary Excellence in 2007.

Ms. Anderson came to the Gulf Coast in 1996 from North Carolina, stopping in New Orleans for a couple decades following her artistic muse. She is a photographer, a musician, an artist, and a civic activist. Her writings have been published in Southern Cultures, Salon, and MSNBC.

My favorite line in the book come near the end of the chapter about the demise of the Bay Town Inn, a local bed-and-breakfast. "[G]old as well as grit," Ms. Anderson wrote, speaking to what Katrina survival and recovery brought to the community -- and she's not speaking of money.

There's another passage about "time heals" being a lie... but I checked our copy out to a student today who is writing a paper on the storm and communities and didn't have time to write it out.

These chapters are stories of amazing people, amazing survival in unbelievable conditions. It is sad, but not depressing, and certainly not hopeless. I strongly recommend the book to everyone.

A good amount of Ellis's writings -- who is charming, by the way -- are available online. Just google her name or the book title.… (altro)