Since the publication of Nine Lives, people have often asked me how I selected the nine, and how I convinced them to share such intimate details about their lives. This week, I’m telling the backstory of my relationship with each. These are in no particular order.

It quickly became clear that the Lower Ninth Ward was the Gaza Strip of New Orleans -- a piece of land whose emotional importance far outweighed its size or economic significance. The Lower Ninth Ward is one of the loci of African-American New Orleans. Most blacks either grew up there, or spent their childhood visiting relatives there. It suffered some of the worst flooding in Hurricane Katrina -- whole square blocks were scraped away by the explosive wave -- and it was the only part of town that, eerily, was blocked off by the authorities. A company of armed National Guardsman camped on the upriver side of the St. Claude Avenue Bridge and wouldn’t let people cross. In the weeks following the disaster, displaced Lower Ninth Ward residents were refused access to their homes. They were driven through one day on buses for a look, but weren’t allowed to disembark. It took a long time for the people of the Lower Nine to get the access to their ruined homes that other New Orleanians enjoyed, and it reinforced a growing sense that the city didn’t want “all those poor black people” to come back. One white business owner in the French Quarter told me straight out he didn’t want to see them back. “They didn’t add anything to this city,” he sniffed, as though their labor and the soul counted for nothing. Don’t get me started.

In any case, it was important as a reporter to gain an understanding of the Lower Ninth Ward early on and the guy everybody directed me to was Ronald Lewis. Ronald worked more than thirty years as a streetcar-track repairman. Ronald had created a tiny museum of Lower Nine culture in his garage before the storm -- all washed away, of course -- and was establishing himself as the voice of the returning people.

I reached Ronald on his cellphone in Thibodaux, Louisiana, in October 2005 and he agreed to drive in to New Orleans to show me around the wreckage of the Lower Nine. The story of our meeting is included in an article I wrote about the Lower Ninth Ward for The New Yorker; it’s called “The Lost Year” and can be found here.

What I most remember is standing in the sticky, foul-smelling mud in front of what used to be Ronald’s house. The devastation in every direction was absolute. Every house was shattered and drenched in the oily mud that covered the lawns, the sidewalks, the streets, and the trees. Not a bird sang, Not a bug buzzed. It was the very picture of death.

“We’re all going to come back,” Ronald said. “All these people will be back; you’ll see.” And I thought: This poor man. Somebody’s got to take him aside and tell him that this is over. This is never, ever coming back to life.

Ronald was right, of course. I was back in New Orleans in February and the Lower Ninth Ward is a lot more alive than dead. Ronald’s house is completely rebuilt -- as is The House of Dance and Feathers, his backyard museum -- and most of his neighbors are back. The houses are occupied. The lawns and gardens replanted. Businesses have opened. On many streets of the Lower Nine, you’d be hard pressed to know anything bad had ever happened.

When we were choosing characters for Nine Lives, Ronald was a natural choice. And his life story was so powerful -- raised by a moral giant of a woman, a career as a union organizer amid the hideous apartheid of the streetcar tracks, his devotion to his neighborhood, his marriage to the fiery and hilarious Minnie -- that he was proud and happy to share it at tremendous length. Ronald and I must have had thirty interviews together, each one running three hours or more. He is a great natural storyteller as all New Orleanians are. I’d bring over a twelve pack of Bud Lite and shrimp po’boys from Cap’n Sal’s -- no butter or mayo for Minnie -- and we’d talk and talk and talk. Is there any finer passtime?

Who’d play him in the movie? Charles Dutton has Ronald’s great gruff strength.