Boy, The Awakening was awful! If you want to read about New Orleans, read Lafcadio Hearn instead. Much more fun to read, and no PC BS either. Strange bird but an excellent writer in the rather florid and dramatic Victorian style. His "New Orleans Sketches" is absolutely riveting, with such topics as the life and death of the last of the old Voodoo "houngans" or high priests, and superstitions connected with Voodoo and other New Orleans traditions. Also pathetic stories of love and loss, one in particular, "Chita", turns on a yellow fever epidemic and a hurricane (hey, it's Victorian drama, but it's great!).
Hearn later moved to Japan, married the daughter of a Samurai, took a Japanese name, and became immersed in a new role as the interpreter of Japan to the West. His translations of Japanese ghost stories are superb -- I have told them to my children's school classes on Hallowe'en with gratifying results. ;-)