Between Piety And Desire

by Arlet Wylie, Sam Wylie

St. Claude Avenue, the main street in New Orleans’s Ninth Ward, lies between Piety and Desire. Brother-and-sister team Arlet and Sam Wylie talk about their regular and irregular life on the rough-and-tumble street, living above a neighborhood store. They remember a childhood of parents keeping them inside to avoid the struggles of the neighborhood around them, though life inside often wasn’t much better. The Wylies talk to the people who live and hang out on the block, from the guys in front of the store to a candid interview with “Avon Seller”, a teenage hustler, but they also detail their inside life, including Sam’s new fatherhood, Arlet’s new home, and a powerful interview with their mother, a survivor of domestic abuse. Throughout, they weave the history of St. Claude through their own history living upstairs. Unusually frank and self-reflective, the Wylies paint a remarkable picture of a street where drugs, guns, poverty, and violence are part of the everyday landscape, yet where hope is never quite extinguished.

111 pages, Paperback

First published October 18, 2005

Reviews

[L]

awesome.