Ford Writes Elegy for New Orleans

Richard Ford, who lived in New Orleans for years, writes an elegy for The Guardian. An editor asked him who could write about the tragic city and although Ford had many names, many possibilities, they couldn’t locate any of those authors. So after recounting many of his finest New Orleans moments, Ford writes “I write in the place of others, today, for the ones who can’t be found. And there is a blunt ending now, one we always feared, never wished for, do not deserve. Don’t get me wrong. We would all turn the days back if we could, have those old problems, those old eccentricities again. But today is a beginning. There’s no better way to think of it now. Those others surely will be writing soon.”

Read the entire essay here.