The cliché “New Orleans gets into people’s blood” happens to be very true—just not always convenient. For Cheryl Wagner (along with her indie-band boyfriend, a few eccentric pals, some ne’er-do-wells, and two aging basset hounds) abandoning the city she loved wasn’t an option.

Well-meaning out-of-town friends kept calling my Go phone with absurd suggestions of where Jake and I should stow ourselves. Austin, Asheville, and Portland kept coming up as our personal Shangri-Las for reasons I could not fathom other than that these were towns with well-documented vegetarian populations.

This is the story of Cheryl’s disturbing surprise view from her front porch after she moved back home to find everything she treasured in shambles…and her determined, absurd, and darkly funny three-year journey of trying to piece it all back together.

If instead of moving from a small Louisiana town to New Orleans at seventeen I had fled the South like forward-looking modern careerist girls without money are all supposed to, and moved into one of those New York or Metroanywhere cubbyholes off a subway entrance, then I would not be on the back balcony about to fall to my death now. I would be bored, maybe. But safe!

In the same heartfelt and hilarious voice that has drawn thousands of listeners to her broadcasts on public radio’s This American Life, Wagner shares her unique yet universal story of rebuilding a life after it’s been flooded, dried, and died…and then the copper thieves moved in…  less