A humid, meandering, late-period miniature masterpiece of the New Journalism.Dwight Garner, The New York Times
It is only because Lemann turns her gaze to the things that really matter to herhow people act, and what they believe in spite of the facts facing themthat the book feels like a small miracle. And she gets away with it in the same way Governor Edwards did: with an abundance of style. Brandy Jenson, the New Yorker
Although Nancy was a protégé of Gordon Lish, Elizabeth Hardwick, and Walker Percy, her literary voice from the outset was assuredly, distinctively hers. In temperament and sensibility, she seems to me closer to F. Scott Fitzgerald than any of her mentorsor perhaps shes Scott and Zelda rolled into one, her work suffused with a longing for a lost glamour. And she has no imitators. James Wolcott
To that downhome recipe of styled rhetoric and ironic levity, Lemann allots a new ingredient in The Ritz of the Bayou: fragmentation. White space is vital to the method. Via the typographical TARDIS known as the section break, Lemann hops through space and time as she reports on the trial. An Eisensteinian montage of zippy one-liners, anecdotes, maxims, and asides, The Ritz of the Bayou trusts readers to bring meaning to the work, to fill the white space on their own, to parse all the lies and damn lies of the South. Snowden Wright, the Oxford American
A feature of Nancy Lemanns distinctive, dreamy style is that she often repeats herself. Images, events, and turns of phrase reoccur. The people in her books are always "falling apart"; their hearts are often 'in a million pieces on the floor.' Kaitlyn Tiffany, The Atlantic
This atmospheric, fragmented, and admirably peculiar work, which had only one hard-cover printing and no paperback run, deftly captures New Orleanss idiosyncratic 'tropic zone,' where 'a flawed thing may be more full of life than a perfect thing,' and any event possesses the capacity to become a spectacle. Focused on the chaos of Louisianas governance, with its yearning for charismatic kings over staid leaders, the book can be seen as a bellwether for contemporary politics. Lauren LeBlanc, The Drift
[ Lemann] liked to be colloquial, digressive, repetitive. She says she inherited her worldview and style from New Orleans, whose 'remoteness' lent itself to eccentricity. Marie Solis, the New York Times
At the core of the book is Lemanns passionate, funny, unsettling description of what it feels like to be back home, and she comments often on the rich, troubled character of New Orleans and the South generally. The reprise of The Ritz of the Bayou [ creates] the perfect opportunity for a fresh audience to encounter her unforgettable literary voice. Maria Browning, Chapter 16
Though Ritz covers the first two Edwards trials back-to-back, Lemann writes it in fiercely nonlinear order, a luminous slurry of lyrical fragments and set pieces that somehow, in mirroring the befuddlement of justice that took place and has always taken place, in some sense, in the state of Louisiana, is able to generate more meaning than a strict reportorial view ever could. Adrian Van Young, Southwest Review
It takes a certain kind of guts as a writer to trust in ones own aesthetic instincts that much. Her account of the seemingly endless trial is all atmosphere, a kind of tone poem of charismatic corruption. Matt Hanson, The Arts Fuse
Lemann brings a combination of levity and deep spiritual grappling to her work that I can only describe as miraculous. Abby Rosebrock, Book Post
