This is an expansive interpretation of New Orleans a " Americaa (TM)s most unique city. Eckstein pursues meanings of the phrase a ~sustaining New Orleansa (TM) from the images that remain through media activities to the competing demands of social justice.

This book offers new and provocative readings of Milan Kundera's "Book of Laughter and Forgetting," J.M. Coetzee's "Waiting for the Barbarians" and "Life and Times of Michael K," selected short fiction of Nadine Gordimer and Grace Paley, Ibuse Masuji's "Black Rain," John Hawkes's "Travesty," and others.