The Danse Macabre

Cheryl Gerber is an award-winning documentary photographer and New Orleans native. She has been a regular contributor to the New York Times, the Associated Press, New Orleans Magazine, and Gambit for more than twenty-five years. She is the author of New Orleans: Life and Death in the Big Easy and Cherchez la Femme: New Orleans Women.

This book is a beautiful and insightful meditation on New Orleans-its determination to embrace life in the face of death, its powerfully strange magic, its decrepit elegance, its contradictions. Gerber's photography exquisitely captures the mysterious paradoxes of the city and in so doing vividly illustrates that the sacred and the profane are inextricably linked in New Orleans. The Danse Macabre is a monumental achievement." - Frank Perez, author of Political Animal: The Life and Times of Stewart Butler "Cheryl Gerber has documented the beautiful visual cacophony that is New Orleans. She traverses indoor and outdoor celebrations and private moments from river to lake. It is our privilege to journey with such a capable photographer." - Fatima Shaik, author of Economy Hall: The Hidden History of a Free Black Brotherhood "Cheryl Gerber is home in her native New Orleans. The past of New Orleans is well documented, but its present time and coming future certainly need the vision of Gerber, her experience, and her talent." - Bernard Hermann, author of The Good Times Rolled: Black New Orleans, 1978-1982