Peter M. Wolf

This is a memoir about growing up in New Orleans by the son of a prominent New Orleans Jewish family. After time away at Exeter and Yale, Wolf returned to New Orleans to join his father's cotton brokerage business while at night working on a masters in art history at Tulane. After receiving his degree, he must decide whether to remain in New Orleans in the family business, or leave New Orleans to pursue a career in art/architectural history.

This was an interesting portrait of what it was like to feel like an outsider in New Orleans, which is a notoriously closed society. While Wolf's family was wealthy and prominent in New Orleans going back generations, (they were sufficiently well-known to merit their own table at Galatoire's, for example), they were excluded from elite New Orleans "society" because they were Jewish. As Jews they were excluded from the "right" country clubs and excluded from participation in the Mardi Gras krewes that form the backbone of New Orleans society.

I enjoyed the book because of my familiarity with places and things he mentions and experiences. (He was at Tulane getting his art history degree about 5 years before I was at Tulane getting my music history degree.) However, I had expected from descriptions of the book that it had something to do with Hurricane Katrina, and it does not, except in a very minimal and peripheral way. If you don't have a connection with New Orleans, I'm not sure the book would mean much to you.

3 stars… (más)