Joy here, ruin there
My ARCS arrived in Lafayette, shortly before Hurricane Milton made landfall in Florida
This morning I sit on my back patio attempting to write this, attempting to write anything—paralyzed by the Google tabs still open, holding all the news of Hurricane Milton and the unprecedented, but all too familiar, devastation it’s wreaking upon our neighbors this very moment.
The air here is so quiet, blissful, cool—an uncanny gift from the universe, we the beneficiaries this time. “Tracking Hurricane Milton and beautiful fall weather for Louisiana,” a meteorologist at WDSU reported last night.
Just a month ago, after all, we were the ones waiting for an act of God to tear through our hometown here in Lafayette, tying things down and boarding things up, wondering how we’d fit all the dogs into the downstairs bathroom, the only room in the house without windows.
And, in the end, of course, we were spared—the storm turning east at the last second.
So it feels strange, now, in this horrific peak of the ongoing rise and fall of our tempestuous world, to share good news, to share excitement. To self-promote.
But yesterday I held a version of my book, bound, for the very first time.
I’m reminded of the wise words of my agent, Mina, who wrote some years ago about the challenges of promoting one’s book while the world is on fire. “If we give up on art,” she said, “if we give up on our stories, if we don’t share them far and wide, then we lose the one thing we need to make it through the next hour, day, year, decade.”
This book, after all, shares in common the concerns of this very moment—my ongoing struggle to understand why some people bear unimaginable miseries, when others are spared. Why some people lose everything, when others get to keep it.
So instead of shouting from the rooftops the unreal ecstasy of my work, after all these years, made tangible, I will for now only whisper: I am so, so grateful.
My First Blurb
With ARCs (Advanced Reader Copies, for you non-publishing folks) of Home of the Happy now out in the world, blurbs from early readers are starting to make their way in.
I’m thrilled to share my very first, which comes from none other than the esteemed Walter Isaacson, NYT bestselling biographer of Leonardo da Vinci, Jennifer Doudna, Steve Jobs, and Elon Musk.
“In an impressive feat of both memoir and original reporting, Jordan LaHaye Fontenot has cast a reporter’s gaze on her own family’s buried secrets. But the real value to Home of the Happy lies beyond the brutal crime at its center, in showing us Acadiana and its people as we’ve never seen them before—mired in complexity, rife with beauty, and haunted by injustice.”
—Walter Isaacson
Hurricane Relief Organizations to Support
For those who are able, I’ve compiled some organizations working on the ground to help victims of Hurricane Helene and now Hurricane Milton. If you are aware of other organizations, please mention them in the comments with a link!
In Appalachia
In Florida
What an honor Jordan!!! I am so very excited for you. You are so deserving of all this recognition!! The book can’t come fast enough.
Oh sure! Walter Isaacson gets to read the book and we have to wait months more!