Why does New Orleans matter?

I wrote one nonfiction book [Why New Orleans Matters], one novel [City of Refuge], and three seasons of a TV show [HBO’s “Treme”] in an attempt to answer that question. There’s no way to give a meaningful answer in a few sentences. This city means so many things and is important in so many ways that one runs the risk of violating its meaning in trying to give too compact a response.

How does yo...