Come for the lovely and detailed drawings (by a long-time New Orleans editorial cartoonist). Stay for often-insightful, often-funny, occasionally-hilarious commentary on how the streets of New Orleans got their names. Louisiana mavens will get the most out of the book, but there's a lot to enjoy even for folks that have never been there. Notably in print for a long time after its original publication in 1949 (this edition, the 1979, is updated and also contains humorous corrections). Warmly recommended. ( )

This nonfiction narrative book documents the historical facts behind all the strangely named streets and neighborhoods that make up this port city that is so rich in history. If I could give six stars to a book, and a triumph over boring facts, I would give this book six stars and its author John Chase s pulitzer.
If you really want to visit New Orleans, and enjoy it then read this book as you travel to this southern city.
Frenchmen, Desire ,Good Children written and illustrated by John Chase, a " historical cartoonist" is as many reviewers have quipped " breezy" and boy if you are reading in hot New Orleans - you need something Breezy to read. it is. It is funny, informative and well documented.
New Orleans is known by a famous street, Bourbon Street - and you probably would assume that is because much drinking and carousing go on in that street. No. it was the House of Bourbon Royals that financed the establishment of this city. It wa the Sun King Louis XIV that called his relative Prince Phillip, the Dauphine ( meaning Princess) because he was an overt cross dresser, who established a colony for Princess Phillip and his friends. This is why the oldest "gay parade" probably in the world was here in this city. This is why public nudity is well known in a major city wherein, prostitution was legal for the longest period of time.
New Orleans has documented all that she has been as one of the oldest American cities, and she did so in her Avenues, her by-ways, her routes and her Boulevards. If you have ever visited this city you know it is rather interesting to get around.
As you go from the Irish channel to the Garden District to the CBD to the French Quarter, and onto the Marigny (only a few miles as the crow flies), you will discover "mais chere" it takes a long time to get from here to there and you will feel like you have past through several different cities and potholes before you get to any destination.
We have no Main street but we do have Dumaine, we don't have numbered street (except in the Garden District taken over by the British) but good luck finding those numbered streets, they are not situated in our city as they would be in other well planned metropolis'. New Orleans does have a long street called Tchoupitoulas, which I suggest you go ahead and pronounce the word,however you want to pronounce it - everyone has chosen a different way to say it - and since it is a Native Indian name - none of us actually know the correct pronunciation.
People will tell you got to "Caly ope" - the greek muse of music - by passing" mel po mean" - and you will arrive and say "oh you mean Calliope, like the organ we hear playing on the river boats?" Oh you mean Melpomene the muse (if you are educated) and you will get lost in a spiral of streets built by a developer who intended to build at the center of this spiderweb of streets a replica of the Roman Coliseum.
You will wonder " what is the proper way to cross these Avenues with large "medians" in the middle of most major thoroughfares. Do I stop at the green area, or do I keep going - and be anxious with the thought "is that streetcar going to hit me?"
If you are a planner you will wonder - why do they have these enormous area in the middle of every large thoroughfare, and why do the people call them the "neutral ground"?
We call the "neutral ground" because that is the exact reason they exist. When the British came in, the French and the Spanish did not like them. So there were daily brawls and killings over old European wars that were never forgotten.
So the British would live on one side of the street and the French, Spanish, would live on the other side. The vast green area were called " the neutral ground" because the different Nationals ( British, French Spanish) agreed not to murder one another in the " shared space" between their different neighborhoods. For a century everyone knew "mon dieu" do not cross into their territory. You think the "crips and bloods" have a turf war, they had nothing on the fights between the British and the French.
. As a New Orleanian - who has read this book more than once because it is so very very entertaining, this book informed me of what I knew would happen to this 300 year old city.
As we all know from the recent devastation of Katrina, New Orleans had to be rebuilt again. But this is not the first , second, third or fourth time we have rebuilt. Over our 300 year history, New Orleans has been devastated twice by a citywide fire. We have been flooded by at least one major hurricane in the 3 different centuries that it has existed. New Orleans, rebuilt again. Everytime this happens she gets a new look. The 21st century traveler will probably love her the way she looks now, with the D Day museum the Aquarium, new tour buses and more comfort for all the festivals she puts on for our country. When you come to visit the New Nouvelle Orlean - please remember what she used to be and read this book. It will enhance your visit - I guarantee!!! ( )

I've navigated thousands of streets in scores of cities round the world, only rarely stopping to ponder much how those street names have to say about their cities' stories, whether glorious or sordid. Nowadays many of us traverse modern cities cut into neat blocks by roads efficiently but boringly designated chiefly by numbers and letters, or states and presidents. (As in, "I'll meet you at the corner of 32nd and U, not Virginia and Jefferson.") Especially for those people, John Chases' book "Frenchmen, Desire, Good Children" will make you wish your city elders had the good sense to christen such tepidly named streets instead in honor of the famous or infamous folks who first founded your cities back when the roads weren't more than well-trod ruts in the dirt. Chase's book unveils the long and twisted history of New Orleans by revealing how its streets came to bear the names they do. For anyone who has wandered the serpentine thoroughfares and alleyways of New Orleans, or who wonders what forgotten tales the more singular street names of their own cities may tell, "Frenchmen, Desire, Good Children" is an enlightening and very entertaining read. ( )