PW Talks with Barb Johnson
by Lee Griffith -- Publishers Weekly, 9/28/2009
Hurricane Katrina shut down Barb Johnson's carpentry shop, so she went back to school for her M.F.A. at the University of New Orleans. Her debut collection, More of This World or Maybe Another, deftly chronicles the lives of characters most people would pass on the street with a tinge of wariness. But in New Orleans's Mid-City neighborhood, everyone is family.
After Hurricane Katrina, you sneaked back into New Orleans and wrote some of these stories while you were living on your Mid-City balcony. Why didn't you write about the storm?
A writer friend of mine said everything we write from here on out is going to have to have the hurricane in it. I wanted to think about the city the way it had been before the hurricane, the way in my mind it will always be. Mid-City has enough problems. You don't need to throw a hurricane in there. The hurricane was beside the point.
What is it about Mid-City?
I'm interested in the notion of neighborhood as kind of ad hoc family. The phrase “family values” isn't used much to include people like me or my neighbors, but my neighbors watch out for each other. They take care of one another's children. Every time I locked myself out of my truck, the corner drug dealer would help me get into it. There was a single license plate circulating through that neighborhood because nobody could afford to keep their cars legal. Those are values; that's grown people being family to one another. There are tons and tons of configurations other than mom marries dad and they have 2.5 children.
Is life in Mid-City different after Katrina?
Mid-City has always been pretty clear about its identity. It's not like it was before the storm, yet it's a lot like it was before the storm. We've gained some people and we've lost some people. Things end up working pretty much the same.
How did you become a carpenter?
I got a saw and a screw gun and, like every other girl on the planet, I walked up on a job site. When they asked me if I had experience, I said, “Look at this saw.” I became a carpenter by pretending to be a carpenter. Then I was a carpenter.
