Name: What Storm, What Thunder
ISBN: 9781951142766

Myriam J. A. Chancy

"Sublime. A striking and formidable novel by one of our most brilliant writers and storytellers." --Edwidge Danticat 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.

What Storm, What Thunder

Lindsay

Myriam J.A. Chancy

At the end of a long, sweltering day, as markets and businesses begin to close for the evening, 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. Artfully weaving together these lives, this gripping story gives witness to the desolation wreaked by nature and by man. 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.

A Novel

Fraser Simons

This ticks a bunch of my boxes: non-linear, multi-POV, central theme. Focusing on the famous Haitian earthquake, the narrative occupies multiple characters at various points before and after the event. Some of them attempt to define what “home” means to them, in the context of being Haitian. Others identity is altered from the event, though they’re on the peripheral. A local who comes to help rebuild creates a meta context for relief efforts and fonds. 

All in all, it’s a much more comprehensive result than a single POV, and it ranges in privilege, ethnicity, gender, etc. If you’re going to examine an event like this, this is a great way to do it. It’s compartmentalized. Not sensationalized. Respectful. Seems well researched. It’s a much better structure than, say, having a structure that is only the event unfolding and jumping from character to character to have a sort of disaster movie-esk creation. 

It also means that they’re all pretty much short stories, and so vary, as these are want to do. Some I found really interesting and others felt a bit lack lustre. The theme still hits, but it’s in contrast to the stories that really stand out. This is forever my issue with short stories. The nice thing about this one though, is I think it somewhat knows this and so has the through line of the event and overarching themes. 

I did listen to it on audio and I found the narrator to be far better than is typical. Some people complained that it’s the same narrator for everyone, so it could be confusing when it changes characters. They’re siloed to each chapter but I suppose it depends how much bandwidth you give your audiobooks. If you pay attention there is no problem. If you’re doing other things, though, I could see how that could happen. Heads up! 

The prose felt very natural to the narrator and also above average. Great sense of time and place. Evocative. Active. Good at choosing what is interesting and unique about the locale to communicate to the reader and dispensing with the rest. Worth your time. Even for people who don’t like the short-story-as-novel structure. There’s enough grounding everything together, and no story felt too overlong, even if I wasn’t as into it as another, that it feels like it would appeal to a wide range of readers, imo.

What Storm, What Thunder

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