Three Answers: John M. Barry, author of 'Rising Tide'

by Dick Donahue, PW Daily -- Publishers Weekly, 9/12/2005

Since Hurricane Katrina struck the Gulf Coast, Simon & Schuster has gone back to press three times for an additional 80,000 copies of the trade paperback edition of Rising Tide: The Great Mississippi Flood of 1927 and How It Changed America.

PW: Rising Tide is currently #9 at Amazon.com. What's your reaction to all the renewed interest in the book?

JB: I do not have any mixed emotions; they're all negative. The reason for the interest in the book is the hurricane, and it's not possible to take any pleasure from that. There is no part of my personality—no single corner—that jumps up and says, 'Wow, isn't this nice.' Every time I get a phone call for another interview request, it's like a stab.

PW: You've referred to New Orleans as your home. Do you think you'll write about Katrina?

JB: Obviously people have talked to me about it, but right now it seems too emotionally draining. I've lived in New Orleans since 1994, although I also have a place in D.C. I lived in New Orleans in the '70s, too, and I visited a lot in the '80s. So it's my home. Right now there are a couple of my friends still unaccounted for. But I go back and forth about the idea. In fact a friend of mine—a very good writer—is down there now covering it on a daily basis. Because he's doing that, and because I have a different perspective and different sources, I've thought of doing a book on a co-authorship basis.

PW: The last time you wrote about a catastrophic flood, it was from a distance of decades. Do you need to wait a period of time before writing about something like this—to gain some sort of historical perspective?