With a series of lyrical vignettes Eileen M. Julien traces her life as an African American woman growing up in middle-class New Orleans in the 1950s and 1960s. Julien's narratives focus on her relationship with her mother, family, community, and the city itself, while touching upon life after the devastation of Hurricane Katrina in 2005. New Orleans, a city haunted by a colonial past associated with an African presence, racial mixing, and suspect rituals, has served the Anglo-American imagination as a place of exoticism where objectionable people and unsavoury practices can be found. The destruction of Hurricane Katrina exposed the deep poverty and marginal lives within the city and brought a media storm that perpetuated the existing view of New Orleans' infamy. "Travels with Mae" lovingly restores the wonder of this great city, capturing both its beauty and its pain as seen through the eyes of an insider.