Baton Rouge Death March

Based on the first-hand experiences of the author during Hurricane Katrina, "Baton Rouge Death March" is a fast paced roman à clef. New Orleans was Putnam's home from 1999 until 2011 and he wrote this novel two weeks after the storm in a cheerful hotel room paid for by the Red Cross. The story follows flawed lovers Jack and Elsa, protagonists in a passion play of survival, set in the chaotic aftermath wrought by the most destructive hurricane to hit an American city in a century....
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Based on the first-hand experiences of the author during Hurricane Katrina, "Baton Rouge Death March" is a fast paced roman à clef. New Orleans was Putnam's home from 1999 until 2011 and he wrote this novel two weeks after the storm in a cheerful hotel room paid for by the Red Cross. The story follows flawed lovers Jack and Elsa, protagonists in a passion play of survival, set in the chaotic aftermath wrought by the most destructive hurricane to hit an American city in a century. Clothed in the cheap rags of pedestrian concerns, accessorized with vulgar dialogue, the novel's costume does what all fashion is meant to do: distract and entertain. But it's not meant to last. As the needlework frays, underlying motifs of betrayal and existential longing grow prevalent. They run throughout the novel like twin red threads. Jack narrates the tale with an understated black humor, serving to disguise what would otherwise be ghastly throughout the six increasingly lethal days and nights lived among the wreckage of the storm. No electricity, no running water, rampant looting, roving bands of thieves, well armed racists, the church doors locked and the police gone away, total collapse is imminent. The routine life, the rented life recedes, an anesthetic wearing off. The deserted houses resemble the cool, pleasant shelves of a giant supermarket. The crowds of frustrated shoppers will not wait. Foundering amidst the rising tide of paranoia, traumatized and exhausted, the doomed couple will spend their last night in a government evacuation camp, sleeping in a grass field on the side of a highway overpass, before finally abandoning the city altogether, to push a shopping cart up the Interstate 10 towards Baton Rouge, a city 80 miles away.