Presentation

     August 2005, Mississippi Delta : Hurricane Katrina is imminent. Zola, a retired black schoolteacher lives alone with her old dog : Lady. Zola has had her share of hurricanes. No way is she going to flee before Katrina... Anyhow it's been 10 years since she's been scared. Ever since Caryl died. Cancer... Caryl was her pride, her reason for living, her only son turned brilliant professor. Before his death, he'd left her Lady. She was only a pup then. Outside the storm is raging. The muddy and putrid waters are rising. Zola and Lady take refuge upstairs. In the morning corpses are floating beneath the windows. Zola and Lady are trapped. Finally the rescue team arrive in their motor boat. They have to leave. Now. But there is no place for a dog in the boat, so Zola refuses to be evacuated. She won't abandon Lady. Trapped by the floodwater, will the old woman and her dog survive Katrina ?

Gilles Leroy is the author of several novels published by Mercure de France, including Alabama Song, which received the Goncourt Prize 2007 and has been translated into 25 languages.