In the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, Chris Rose reinvented himself.
Before the storm, his role at The Times-Picayune revolved around chasing celebrities and casting himself as a character in feature stories often intended to illicit a laugh.
After the storm, he and his column transformed.
His prose, often informed by his own experiences and emotions, spoke for those grappling with Katrina and all that it wrought.
It was essential reading in those difficult months when the fate of the city hung in the balance.
He was a finalist for a Pulitzer Prize in Distinguished Commentary and was part of the Picayune team that won a Pulitzer for public service. “1 Dead in Attic,” a collection of his post-Katrina columns, became a New York Times bestseller that is still used in college curriculums.
“These are impressionist cries of pain and mordant humor,” Ken Ringle wrote in his review of “1 Dead in Attic” for the Washington Post. “They so aptly mirrored the sense of surreal dislocation experienced by New Orleanians that they turned Rose into a voice of the tortured city.”
Rose left The Times-Picayune in 2009. He wrote for other outlets even as he battled depression, anxiety, alcoholism and an addiction to painkillers.
Eventually, he stopped writing altogether. After receiving a devastating medical diagnosis in 2021, he retreated to the woods of Maryland, near the area where he grew up.
He hasn’t published anything in years, but that may change.
Meanwhile, here is a look back at some of Rose’s classic columns from 2005 and 2006, when the fate of New Orleans hung in the balance.
- “Who We Are”: Sept. 6, 2005: Rose addressed this column to the rest of America to give a sense of the displaced south Louisianians who might show up at their doorstep. It set the tone for many of the acclaimed columns that would follow.
- "1 Dead in Attic": Nov. 15, 2005: A simple, ominous message spray-painted on a door on St. Roch Avenue inspired this column, which in turn provided the title for Rose's book.
- "I Am Ubiquity": Feb. 7, 2007: In which Rose reflects on his own post-storm celebrity and his invitation to reign over the satirical Krewe du Vieux.
