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Recovering Charles PDF Print E-mail
Written by Our Reviewer   
Saturday, 15 November 2008

Recovering Charles: Loss In the Backdrop of Katrina

Reviewed by Stuart Nachbar

I was intrigued to read Jason Wright’s Recovering Charles because I have lost my mother as a teenager, and I worked in Newark, New Jersey, a very challenging urban center, in a public affairs role. At the time I worked there, I occasionally saw scenes through my camera and through my car window that were not unlike those seen by Katrina victims in New Orleans. Only Newark has never been hit by a Category 5 hurricane.

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Recovering Charles
But while Recovering Charles takes place in post-Katrina New Orleans, it is not a story about New Orleans politics. It briefly covers the devastation and the evacuation, but it is more about a son’s loss. Not only of his parents, but of who he is as a human being.

Recovering Charles’ main character Luke Millward is an up and coming photojournalist in a serious and loving relationship with Jordan, his girlfriend, who has moved from law into real estate. Luke has lived in New York for his college and adult life, while his father Charles had after he had moved to Texas. He did not know that his father had moved again, this time to New Orleans, became a musician, and was missing in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina.  

Charles’ friends in New Orleans call for Luke, and seek his help to find him. And Luke travels to New Orleans with considerable reluctance. Because he remembers his father only as a man who couldn’t keep a family together, and became a drunk after his wife died. Charles’ drunkenness also led Luke to forsake drinking. At first Luke has his doubts that his father might not be a man worth saving.
Last Updated ( Saturday, 15 November 2008 )
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