New Orleans’s 300th anniversary will be on May 7, 2018, thanks to Jean Baptiste Le Moyne de Bienville, an explorer from Montreal—yes, New Orleans is 58 years older than the United States. All Dat is Murphy’s fifth book about his home, which remains a very French city—was, is, and always will be, as he emphasizes. In fact, to this day, a lawyer must learn French law (Napoleonic Code) to practice in Louisiana. The Big Easy is different: For the most part, its citizens are not tortured by the frenzy to achieve, acquire, and manage the unmanageable future. Instead, their days revolve around things that other Americans have pushed out of their lives by incessant work: art, music, elaborate cooking, and, most of all, plenty of time to relax with family and friends. William Faulkner found New Orleans a city where imagination takes precedence over fact. Somebody else said that it is the farthest you can get from America without leaving it. In the spirit of never let the truth get in the way of a good story, Murphy lays out facts and stories over several hundred pages that depict what he has either experienced directly or heard from at least two sources. Distributed by W.W. Norton. Annotation ©2018 Ringgold, Inc., Portland, OR (protoview.com) Read Less