I was so impressed that this was a debut novel because the descriptions of life after Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans were so vivid. I really enjoyed the writing style and the mysterious elements to this story. I'm looking forward to more books of theirs!

Such a beautifully written book! I have enjoyed using it as a mentor text in classes.

I'm clearing out books that I requested ages ago and have been on sale for years! I really enjoyed this title.

Reviewed for Shelf Awareness; published 11/7/2017. https://www.shelf-awareness.com/readers/2017-11-07/the_floating_world.html

As dark and disturbing as Katrina herself, THE FLOATING WORLD takes readers into the most damaged neighborhoods of New Orleans, both during and after the epic storm, in this story of family, race and a city in crisis.

Thanks to Algonquin Books for the review copy of this title.

This book is not an easy read. It's not a page turner or a nail biter. It's not a story of a strong New Orleans rising after a devastating storm and it's not a story of a family coming together in a time of need. It's a fiercely honest account of a family going through tortured times, both emotional and environmental. It's a story of hearts breaking and a city sinking and the absolute worst that people can do. As you read, you are trapped in the brains of humans who are suffering, both in typical ways and in ways brought about by mental illness and dementia.

But. But. You also experience the depths of the human condition and the brutal racial divide in the city. You learn about the horrors of a storm most of us haven't experienced firsthand, and to understand is to empathize.

Is this happy? No. Is it important? Yes.

If you like dark, ruminative stories about complex social issues, this one's for you. If you're looking for a light, fast-paced adventure story about surviving a hurricane, this will definitely surprise you with its slow and meandering nature and psychological focus.

One of the most vibrant is the family patriarch, Vincent, whom Babst brings to life in a portrayal that's impressively unrestrained, even Faulknerian. Because of his memory limitations, we see his whole life stream forward as if in the present tense, outside of the storm's temporal confines. We taste the stuffed crab and pocket pies he ate on a street the city has since replaced with an interstate he doesn't remember. We feel the comfort of his mother's rocking chair, the relief of his dog come back to assure him everything will be O.K

THE FLOATING WORLD by C. Morgan Babst is a novel which deals with Hurricane Katrina and its impact on New Orleans and the people who lived there. The subject matter really intrigued me, especially the idea of including a sense of mystery while chronicling the devastating consequences of this storm. Unfortunately, I found it difficult to stay involved with this text and surprisingly hard to develop empathy for the characters. Decide for yourself – Kirkus and Library Journal both gave Babst's debut work a starred review.

A haunting book that stays with you after you close the cover. It's a great book for a book club

This was a lovely, although somewhat disjointed read for me. I thought the novel's setting had huge potential - and I did really connect with several of the characters - but the story itself fell a little flat for me. Inside the individual sections, I found myself getting really engrossed, but I think perhaps it was the flow that was off - the transitions between characters and storylines felt shaky and left me feeling a bit detached from the plot.

The Floating World examines the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina through the eyes of a family shattered by the event.

I thought that the descriptions in this book were so vivid and authentic. I absolutely adored the author’s writing style! The characters were so thoroughly developed and it was haunting and magical following them as they discovered themselves in the midst of a tragic experience.

4/5 Stars

This is story of a New Orleans family that focuses on how Hurricane Katrina and its aftermath impact them. It leapfrogs between characters with little warning and no transition, as well as jumping around in time - particularly in the case of the aging patriarch with Alzheimer's. The tiny mystery about Reyna and Cora's time in the city alone kept me reading, but the disjointed storytelling kept pulling me out of the story. Ultimately, I wasn't sure what the point was, and I didn't find any of the characters very compelling.

An intelligent, propulsive read, which immerses the reader in strong characterizations and intriguing situations.

THE FLOATING WORLD is a devastatingly beautiful story. I loved the lyrical writing style, the ebb and flow of the story within time, the piercing difficulties these family members experience with one another and with the world around them. The author manages to explore the hurricane, racial issues, and intriguing family dynamics with a deft hand, urging us to read more to find out the inner why that drives these remarkable characters both forward and, in some ways, backwards. I would follow the Boisdores family anywhere. Fans of literary fiction will love this novel. Thanks to NetGalley for the ARC!

Great book. Highly recommend. Fabulous story, great book club pick.

The Floating World by C. Morgan Babst examines the aftermath of Katrina through the life of a family shattered by the event. While reading it, I thought of Kai T. Erikson’s famed “Everything In Its Path” about the Buffalo Creek Flood that destroyed a small community in West Virginia and his research identifying the collective trauma as post-traumatic stress disorder. In a large part, this book is about that collective trauma and its effect on the Boisdoré family.

There are five members of the family we follow. The oldest is the grandfather Vincent who is suffering from dementia. He had been living in a nursing home until evacuated by his son ahead of the flood. He is often living in his childhood. He was a famed cabinet maker from a long line of skilled artisans. Then there is Joe Boisdoré, the father, and his now estranged wife Dr. Tess Eshleman. He is an artist and she is a psychiatrist. They have two daughters, Dolores (Del) and Cora. Cora is deeply depressed. She refused to leave New Orleans during the evacuation and it was three weeks before her family found her. Her family does not know what happened during those three weeks, but they blame each other for allowing it to happen, which is why Tess and Joe have separated. Del had moved to New York and watched the flood on television, but she is no less touched by the trauma of losing home and a solid foundation.

I felt sympathy for each person on their own, but not together. The mother, Tess, is white and so oblivious to privilege. She thinks Joe is a coward because he was turned away by the Blackwater security forces keeping people out. She has no understanding of how privileged her assessment is. His own grandfather was lynched as the adult Vincent surely saw through the lie of his drowning when he grew older and understood the significance of that kerchief around his neck. A guard mock shoots him with a finger-gun, making the point that he could easily kill him with impunity. Joe understands that, but Tess cannot and cannot forgive. Instead, she sees this tragedy as a way to regain the life she wanted when she was in high school, an infantilist regression to an easier life. She even imagines if she had married a white man, she would have easier children. There is so much that appalls me about Tess, even when I feel empathy for her fears about her daughter Cora.

Cora is going through her own hell, deeply traumatized and confused. Del is trying to be supportive and help her but cannot help feeling impatient and sick of it, too. She has her own life to figure out.



The is a lush beauty to the writing in The Floating World which makes me wish I liked it better. I was often struck by beautiful imagery and rich descriptions, but the story itself felt jumbled and chaotic. Perhaps this was a deliberate choice, mental illness is often chaotic and jumbled and navigating through it can make one feel lost and confused. The story jumps from one person to the next, a fairly common narrative technique. However, the transitions are disjointed and disruptive. They seem designed to unsettle the reader more than further the story. These breaks give the story a hallucinatory feeling at times that may be a deliberate effort to evoke the confusion and alienation of trauma, but for me, was simply annoying. Babst is clearly an excellent stylist, I just wish she did not work so hard to confound her readers.

I received an e-galley of The Floating World from the publisher through NetGalley.

The Floating World is a difficult book to read. For about a quarter of the book, while setting the groundwork for the reader to understand the characters, including New Orleans, the author "lost me" a few times. The back and forth in time and story telling left me confused. While I pondered whether to continue, I did forge forth to find a beautiful and haunting story. The hurricane Katrina and the devastation it left to the landscape, the soul searching of one family's individual and collective struggles, the issues of race, mixed marriage, and caring for the elderly all came together to tell a very important story.

This isn't always the easiest book- it touches on racial issues, dysfunctional families, and the destruction wrecked by Hurricane Katrina in so many more ways than physical. Ironically, I read this in the wake of the terrible Hurricanes Harvey, Irma, and Maria, making this even more of a cautionary tale than it might have been a few months ago. Babst has a writing style that forces you to read every word. The Boisdore family is not representative of all New Orleans families but it's got quite a history and a story to tell. Thanks to Netgalley for the ARC. This is not going to be the book for everyone but it's a wonderful piece of literary fiction that will make you think about how we treat one another in the wake of destruction and tragedy.

This novel which takes place during and after Hurricane Katrina is pretty much unremittingly depressing. It centers on the Boisdoré family. Joe, the father, is a Creole descended from freed slaves. Tess, the mother, is from the white upper class, and is pretty much a despicable person. She “settled” for Joe when her high school crush, the white aristocratic Augie, married her best friend Madge. Madge died five years before however from cancer.

The two grown, mixed-race daughters of Joe and Tess, Del (short for Adelaide) and Cora, are in various stages of crisis. Cora, who stayed in the city during the hurricane, is now almost catatonic, presumably suffering from PTSD, although she hasd a history of depression even before the storm. Del, who was in New York, is suffused with guilt for not having been there in New Orleans to help Cora. As the story begins, she rushes back to Louisiana to try to help.

As the story progresses, we gradually find out (to an extent) what happened to Cora during the storm that caused her trauma, and how Del, always protective of Cora, acted to protect and heal her.

Cora and Del also each have romantic interests who, however, remain mostly ciphers, presumably included to illuminate aspects of the girls’ personalities.

The other main character is Joe’s father Vincent. He has Lewy body dementia (LBD,) a progressive brain disorder in which Lewy bodies (abnormal deposits of a protein called alpha-synuclein) build up in areas of the brain that regulate behavior, cognition, and movement. A great deal of the narrative is devoted to Vincent’s dissociation as his mind drifts between the past and present.

Finally, Katrina is also a main “character” in this book. For those who think a city’s problems are over when the storm passes, this story will serve as a useful (and horrifying) corrective.

I didn’t find any of the characters very appealing, except for Joe. Tess resented him for not defying police to go back and get Cora after the storm, but Tess is clueless about what it means to be a person of color in relation to the police. Nevertheless, she uses her anger as an excuse to turn to Augie.

My main criticism, however, is that to me, much of the writing met the definition of what author Ayelet Waldman once called “bore-geous.” This is writing with “lush and richly imagined bits of narrative - long, lovely descriptions of characters and scenery . . . in which nothing whatsoever was going on.” In short, the writing may be good, but the content is desultory and often just boring.

Evaluation: The tensions of race and class come to the forefront during and after the devastation of Hurricane Katrina in this story of a mixed-race family affected by the storm. This depressing story ultimately fell short for me, however. I thought the characters were unappealing, and not really fleshed out enough. Moreover, the writing was too consciously literary rather than focused on the action, so that in the end, I didn’t really even feel I know all that had happened in the plot.

WOW. This book was beautiful and tragic. So well written. Heartbreaking. I am still pondering it all

Thank You Net Galley for the free ARC.

I chose this book because it dealt with the flooding after Hurricane Katrina. The focus is more on one family than all of New Orleans. The evacuations force Joe and Tess to leave the city, their grown daughter stays behind. When they come back, their daughter is basically a recluse, something happened to her mind during the storm. Joe and Tess split up because of all the the turmoil from the hurricane. In the end this is a story of survival

This one just wasn't for me. I did not finish it because I just did not like the style of the writing, and the way the story was being told.