Louisiana Books on Struggles and Recovery

Go Help Yourself

“Go Help Yourself” is Daniel Pope’s debut novel, which asks the question, what if all the self-help gurus of today were wrong about how broken we all are? The protagonist of Go Help Yourself is Corbin Moore, a writer in his 20s that works at a “spiritualist” Seattle bookstore and who essentially smokes weed every day. When his mother, famous self-help guru  Geraldine (who he has a complicated relationship with), comes home, his world is turned upside down. “Go Help Yourself” was the winner of the 2025 University of New Orleans Press Publishing Lab prize. 384 pages, $26.95

Broken Houses: Poems

In Chelsea Rathburn’s “Broken Houses: Poems,” she gives us poems about broken houses and broken homes, both the physical and those that transcend the buildings and cities we live in. She writes poems focusing on the ghosts and the homes of the past, channeling from her childhood in Florida. The poems focus on the macro, such as how the settlement of Miami came to be, to the micro, like her father’s experience in California in foster homes. Rathburn is the Poet Laureate of Georgia. “Broken Houses: Poems” is the second book of Rathburn’s that has been published by LSU Press. 86 pages, $20.95

Whole, Holy, Hot

Chrissy Martin’s debut poetry collection, “Whole, Holy, Hot,” uses everything from longer prose poems to more formal verse poems that wrestle with the struggle and beauty of a life lived with chronic illness and disability. In her poem, “Nail Harmony,” Martin enters the poem through her use of the Dolly Parton song “9 to 5” and her use of nails in the song, to how the speaker of the poem used nails as a weapon to defend herself, ending with the line, “How do we mourn those who made us sharpen ourselves into weapons.” She is an assistant professor of English at Centenary College of Louisiana. Martin lives in Shreveport, Louisiana. 100 pages, $18.00

On Witness and Respair

“On Witness and Respair” is a collection of essays from MacArthur Foundation Genius Grant winner Jesmyn Ward, which takes the name from the essay of the same title that she published in Vanity Fair during the COVID-19 pandemic. The essays all focus on surviving challenging moments in life, such as the killing of her brother by a drunk driver and the death of her husband during the Covid-19 pandemic, to her desire to process it all through writing. These essays are all incredibly impactful and this is a must-read book. Ward is a professor at Tulane University in New Orleans. 256 pages, $29.00