Book Review: John Barry's "Rising Tide"

John Barry, Rising Tide: The Great Mississippi Flood of 1927 and How it Changed America

As the Mississippi River began to pass previous flood records, I re-read John Barry's history of the 1927 Mississippi River flood. We bought the book in 1999, if I remember correctly, when my husband and I were in New Orleans for several days. During the day, my husband was attending a conference, and I was wandering the streets of the French Quarter and spent some leisurely time in Faulkner House Books on Pirate Alley. The second time through this book was as interesting to me as the first time I read it. I highly recommend this telling of that historic flood that most people had never heard of until news organizations began mentioning it again in light of the flood that is still making its way down the Mississippi River as I type these words. Barry weaves together the stories of nineteenth century engineers whose personalities had a profound effect on decisions made in trying to tame the Mississippi; of the personalities of the Percy family of Greenville, Mississippi, whose authority as planters and politicians had profound effects on the lives of the descendants of former slaves, blacks who labored on the plantations made fertile by thousands of years of flood deposits of the Mississippi; of the racism of the South and of the flight of African-Americans after the flood to the north, carrying with them the birth of the blues that came out of their horrendous experiences in that flood; of the venality of the rich and powerful in New Orleans.

And just a few minutes ago, while looking up and reading reviews of Barry's book, I came across a review by one of the Percy family, William Armstrong Percy, a character if there ever was one--and an academic.

When I lived in Louisiana before--all those years ago, from 1983-1987--when Tom was working on his Ph.D., and I was teaching in the English Department at Louisiana State University in Baton Rouge, I became interested in the writings of Walker Percy, grand-nephew of Leroy Percy, the Mississippi planter and senator who figures so largely in Barry's history. One of my friends recommended to me Walker Percy's Lost in the Cosmos: The Last Self-Help Book," and I was hooked. I read much of Walker Percy's fiction and a couple of his novels. I was a serious Walker Percy fan for a while. Now that I'm living again in Louisiana, near the town where Percy spent his adult life, I've been thinking of him. Maybe I'll pick up Lost in the Cosmos and re-read it. I seem to be in a re-reading phase, returning to books I read years ago. Maybe that's a sign of approaching old age--reviewing what one once knew and now remembers rather hazily!

Meanwhile, pick up Barry's book Rising Tide, immerse yourself in another time, and ask yourself just how much has changed in how money and power work in this country.