An Elegy for the Lost City

As the Aquarian Age dawns, a child is fated to begin playing trumpet like a life-long master on the day after Louis Armstrong dies. Meanwhile, there's scandal in the Garden District as rebellious well-kept hippie kids of the Old Line Dufossat's intermarry edgy Silverman's, their only male progeny seen as savior to the diminishing original French line. It was the best of times. It is the end of times.

As the musical imp's destiny unfolds, the Silverman boy suffers karmas of repeated heartbreak, fueled by voodoo curse rooted in early slave abuse. Their fates entwine this saga's mysteries, unfurling a time-tripping, sonorous elegy told from a near future New Orleans, after earth's been devastated by a volcanic holocaust, killing tens of millions and continuing to choke the atmosphere. And that's just for "STARTERS..."

Superstars merge with our melange of Buddhists, Christians and Jews, mixed seekers and salacious sinners. Elegy's rich, curiously tied cast swims this stormy sea, a "ficto" reality reminiscent of the outrageous whack-jobs in "A Confederacy of Dunces." Jump into this pop culture countdown to apocalypse, spanning three centuries of Deep South survivors, a wild panorama of everything---from Beatles to baseball with the Crescent City as epicenter---a thrill ride like no other. Reviews

"Goldstein's free-flowing prose, peppered with stinging humor propels the reader into the twi-lit, perfumed courtyards of the mysterious city and into the quirky, soulful spirits of its multi-racial denizens. A book to be savored like a spicy crawfish bisque-read it, but be warned of this risk: you may soon feel an overwhelming urge to experience 'N'awlins', not just through Goldstein's eyes and ears, but by spending a few weeks there yourself." ---Michael Lydon; A Founding Editor, Rolling Stone Magazine

"Very cool and v. funny-ambitious, it has a DeLillo-like sweep, with a wonderfully American sense and sensibility." Of the Audiobook he said: "I listened to some of this, and found it very good-sardonic, sad, with a mordant humor, haunting music." ---Daniel Menaker; Retired Random House Executive Editor-in-chief, and former Fiction Editor of The New Yorker

"Like a deep-South, down River Lake Wobegon, only with a truly funny, hipster host instead of that doltish clod." ---Willy Holtzman; Pulitzer Prize-nominated playwright, Peabody Award and Writer's Guild Award winner

"A work set to leave its mark on New Orleans... Johnny Goldstein's fancy, his memory, his vision, wonderfully captures our mesmeric city of gritty quaint features, a place in the realm of nowhere, the epicenter of everywhere and everything, alas, only too real.

Lifelong songwriter Goldstein's rhythmically-charged prose leads the way, and we follow this soulful pied piper of storytelling narrative, dancing along this crooked path Mississippi River as the choppy waters of time and those mired in its shadows roll on. You gotta love that "An Elegy for the Lost City"-FOUND... A work of fiction? Maybe." ---TJ Fisher; Author of Orleans Embrace with the Secret Gardens of the Vieux Carre 2007 Winner of PMA Benjamin Franklin Awards as; "Best New Voice, Nonfiction" and "Best First Book, Nonfiction" "