“McCaffety knows how to capture the fleeting beauty of a moment.”
—Times-Picayune
For many, the French Quarter is New Orleans, yet how much do they really know about the Vieux Carré? Truman Capote wrote, “Of all secret cities, New Orleans . . . is the most secretive. . . . [Its] architecture deliberately concocted to camouflage, to mask, as at a Mardi Gras Ball, the lives of those born to live among these protective edifices.”
Through striking photographs and polished prose, The Majesty of the French Quarter opens the locked door and invites readers to discover a multitude of hidden marvels. among the discovered gems is the 1828 Bourbon Street mansion of Lindy Boggs, former U. S. ambassador to the Vatican and former congresswoman. Pictured are many such homes’ secret, overgrown gardens where, noted Capote, “mimosa and camellias contrast color, and lazing lizards, flicking their forked tongues, race along palm fronds.” Also featured are rare glimpses of the antique-filled and artfully decorated interiors of some of the Quarter’s most majestic homes, including that of New Orleans novelist Julie Smith.
While this series has examined New Orleans as a whole and the city’s Garden District in particular, the French Quarter has quietly kept her secrets to herself-until now.
About the Photographer
Kerri McCaffety counts among her accolades the 1999 gold Lowell Thomas Award from the Society of American Travel Writers and the 1998 Author of the Year award from the New Orleans Gulf South Booksellers Association. Her first book, Obituary Cocktail: Great Saloons of New Orleans, was named one of 1998’s best books of the year by the New Orleans Times-Picayune. Ms. McCaffety came to New Orleans to study at Tulane University, where she earned a degree in anthropology, with a concentration in ethnographic documentary. She has since photographed people and their environs in Europe, Central Africa, and Haiti. Her writing and photojournalism have appeared in numerous publications, including Southern Accents, The Oxford American, Historic Traveler, Town and Country, Travel & Leisure, and Louisiana Cultural Vistas.
THE MAJESTY OF THE FRENCH QUARTER
Text and Photography by Kerri McCaffety
ARCHITECTURE / Domestic
192 pp. 8 1/2 x 11
287 color photos Map
ISBN: 9781565544147