What Storm, What Thunder
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4.6 • 9 Ratings
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- $14.99
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- $14.99
Publisher Description
American Book Award Winner
Aspen Words Literary Prize Finalist
A NPR, Boston Globe, New York Public Library, Chicago Public Library, and Library Journal Best Book of the Year
“Stunning.” —Margaret Atwood
At the end of a long, sweltering day, an earthquake of 7.0 magnitude shakes the capital of Haiti, Port-au-Prince. Award-winning author Myriam J. A. Chancy masterfully charts the inner lives of the characters affected by the disaster—Richard, an expat and wealthy water-bottling executive with a secret daughter; the daughter, Anne, an architect who drafts affordable housing structures for a global NGO; a small-time drug trafficker, Leopold, who pines for a beautiful call girl; Sonia and her business partner, Dieudonné, who are followed by a man they believe is the vodou spirit of death; Didier, an emigrant musician who drives a taxi in Boston; Sara, a mother haunted by the ghosts of her children in an IDP camp; her husband, Olivier, an accountant forced to abandon the wife he loves; their son, Jonas, who haunts them both; and Ma Lou, the old woman selling produce in the market who remembers them all.
Brilliantly crafted, fiercely imagined, and deeply haunting, What Storm, What Thunder is a singular, stunning record, a reckoning of the heartbreaking trauma of disaster, and—at the same time—an unforgettable testimony to the tenacity of the human spirit.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
The 2010 earthquake in Haiti provides the backdrop for the extraordinary latest from Chancy (The Loneliness of Angels). "The earth had buckled and, in that movement, all that was not in its place fell upon the earth's children, upon the blameless as well as the guilty, without discrimination," remembers survivor Ma Lou, a market woman. Multilayered, lyrical, and told by 10 people affected by the disaster, all connected by blood or friendship, Chancy's dazzling take considers a myriad of topics including sexual violence, racism, a dysfunctional government, and capitalism. There's Ma Lou's estranged, wealthy water executive son, Richard, who returns to Haiti on a business trip from Paris just before the earthquake, and drowns while having an anti-capitalist epiphany; Richard's daughter, Anne, an architect working in Rwanda who returns to help after the quake; Taffia, 15, who lives for much of the year in a displaced persons camp, where she is raped and gets pregnant; and Didier, her brother, an undocumented cab driver in Boston who is often stiffed and sometimes beaten by his fares due to his skin color. Didier hears about the tragedy on NPR and wishes he could know if his family are safe while feeling guilty for pursuing his own life. There are many endings, with shifting fortunes and stories involving vodou, and it all coheres with a poignant mission involving Ma Lou and Anne four years after the earthquake. Each of the voices entrances, thanks to Chancy's beautiful prose and rich themes. This is not to be missed.
Customer Reviews
Enlightening
This novel captures the experience and emotion of one of the worst disasters in recorded human history.