Zane and the Hurricane: A Story of Katrina by Rodman Philbrick (review)

To say that Zane has bad timing is “the understatement of the century”; the twelveyear-old (accompanied by his beloved dog, Bandit) makes his first visit to New Orleans and his late father’s grandmother just as Hurricane Katrina bears down on the city. What starts as an idyll turns into an evacuation; then Bandit leaps out of a stopped vehicle, Zane dashes after him, and they end up back at Zane’s greatgrandmother’s house in the Ninth Ward as the storm rages. Flooding forces them to the roof, where they’re rescued by Mr. Tru, a local musician, and Malvina, Mr. Tru’s prickly young charge. Together, the group boats and then walks their way through the devastated city to find safety, only to discover the Superdome barred to them, the unflooded wealthy districts armed and hostile, and help nowhere to be found. Philbrick writes with a taut pace, turning the realities of the Katrina disaster into a grim, absorbing adventure that incorporates the infamous details without forcing documentary into the story. Resilient, plainspoken Zane makes an engaging narrator, and his position as an outsider allows explanation to happen organically; his personal journey of connection to the father he never knew (“A dead man who was once exactly my age, and who looked at this place through eyes not much different than my own”) and the African-American side of his family add a personal dimension. Zane’s triumphant survival doesn’t undercut the sheer horror of Katrina’s wrath and civilization’s breakdown, and young readers who know Katrina only as a distant headline memory will gain understanding of nature’s fury and humanity’s failure. End matter includes a map, a timeline, and a collection of relevant facts as well as an author’s note that mentions source material.