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What Storm, What Thunder
- Narrated by: Ella Turenne
- Length: 11 hrs
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Publisher's summary
The audiobook edition of What Storm, What Thunder includes an exclusive introduction from author Myriam Chauncy about the 2010 earthquake in Haiti that inspired this novel, as well as the devastating earthquake that struck Haiti earlier this year. In her own voice and signature poignant and vivid prose, Myriam reflects on her efforts to humanize a catastrophe and provide listeners with a means to understand the incredible strength and spirit of a nation in crisis.
“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.
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, witness is given 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.
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Nephthys Kinwell is a taxi driver of sorts in Washington, DC, ferrying passengers in a 1967 Plymouth Belvedere with a ghost in the trunk. Endless rides and alcohol help her manage her grief over the death of her twin brother, Osiris, who was murdered and dumped in the Anacostia River. Unknown to Nephthys when the novel opens in 1977, her estranged great-nephew, 10-year-old Dash, is finding himself drawn to the banks of that very same river. It is there that Dash has charmed conversations with a mysterious figure he calls the "River Man".
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This is the one
- By just_watching on 04-27-21
By: Morowa Yejidé
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The Darling
- By: Russell Banks
- Narrated by: Mary Beth Hurt
- Length: 14 hrs and 16 mins
- Unabridged
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The Darling is Hannah Musgrave's story, told emotionally and convincingly years later by Hannah herself. A political radical and member of the Weather Underground, Hannah has fled America to West Africa, where she and her Liberian husband become friends and colleagues of Charles Taylor, the notorious warlord and now ex-president of Liberia. When Taylor leaves for the United States in an effort to escape embezzlement charges, he's immediately placed in prison.
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Complex and compelling
- By Ellen H. Anderson on 02-05-05
By: Russell Banks
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The Past Is Never
- A Novel
- By: Tiffany Quay Tyson
- Narrated by: Devon Sorvari
- Length: 9 hrs and 41 mins
- Unabridged
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Siblings Bert, Willet, and Pansy know better than to go swimming at the old rock quarry. According to their father, it's the Devil's place, a place that's been cursed and forgotten. But Mississippi Delta summer days are scorching hot, and they can't resist cooling off in the dark, bottomless water - until the day six-year-old Pansy vanishes...not drowned, not lost, simply gone. When their father disappears as well, Bert and Willet leave their childhoods behind to try and hold their broken family together.
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Intriguing Southern gothic tale
- By Robert Jason on 03-11-20
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A Nail Through The Heart
- A Poke Rafferty Thriller
- By: Timothy Hallinan
- Narrated by: Victor Bevine
- Length: 10 hrs and 49 mins
- Unabridged
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Poke Rafferty was writing offbeat travel guides for the young and terminally bored when Bangkok stole his heart. Now the American expat is assembling a new family with Rose, the former go-go dancer he wants to marry, and Miaow, the tiny, streetwise urchin he wants to adopt. But trouble in the guise of good intentions comes calling just when everything is beginning to work out.
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Ever been to Bangkok?
- By Richard Delman on 12-11-11
By: Timothy Hallinan
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A Girl Is a Body of Water
- By: Jennifer Nansubuga Makumbi
- Narrated by: Tovah Ott
- Length: 14 hrs and 53 mins
- Unabridged
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International award-winning author Jennifer Nansubuga Makumbi’s novel is a sweeping and powerful portrait of a young girl and her family: who they are, what history has taken from them, and - most importantly - how they find their way back to each other. In her thirteenth year, Kirabo confronts a piercing question that has haunted her childhood: who is my mother? Kirabo has been raised by women in the small Ugandan village of Nattetta - her grandmother, her best friend, and her many aunts - but the absence of her mother follows her like a shadow.
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African narrators for African novels!
- By Lynn on 04-24-21
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The First Man
- By: Albert Camus
- Narrated by: Jefferson Mays
- Length: 8 hrs and 9 mins
- Unabridged
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In The First Man, Albert Camus tells the story of Jacques Cormery, a boy who lived a life much like his own. Camus summons up the sights, sounds, and textures of a childhood circumscribed by poverty and a father's death yet redeemed by the austere beauty of Algeria and the boy's attachment to his nearly deaf-mute mother. The result is a moving journey through the lost landscape of youth that also discloses the wellsprings of Camus's aesthetic powers and moral vision.
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Great Narration by Jefferson Mays
- By Sean Patrick Stevens on 07-31-21
By: Albert Camus
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Before You Knew My Name
- A Novel
- By: Jacqueline Bublitz
- Narrated by: Penelope Rawlins
- Length: 10 hrs and 53 mins
- Unabridged
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When she arrived in New York on her eighteenth birthday carrying nothing but $600 cash and a stolen camera, Alice Lee was looking for a fresh start. Now, just one month later, she is the city’s latest Jane Doe. She may be dead but that doesn’t mean her story is over. Meanwhile, Ruby Jones is also trying to reinvent herself. After travelling halfway around the world, she’s lonelier than ever in the Big Apple. Until she stumbles upon a woman’s body by the Hudson River, and suddenly finds herself unbreakably tied to the unknown dead woman.
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Excellent
- By cristina on 11-11-22
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Trashlands
- By: Alison Stine
- Narrated by: Brittany Pressley
- Length: 11 hrs and 14 mins
- Unabridged
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A few generations from now, the coastlines of the continent have been redrawn by floods and tides. Global powers have agreed to not produce any new plastics, and what is left has become valuable: Garbage is currency. In the region-wide junkyard that Appalachia has become, Coral is a “plucker", pulling plastic from the rivers and woods. She’s stuck in Trashlands, a dump named for the strip club at its edge, where the local women dance for an endless loop of strangers and the club's violent owner rules as unofficial mayor.
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Trashlands
- By Richard W. Carlson on 01-10-23
By: Alison Stine
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The Star Side of Bird Hill
- By: Naomi Jackson
- Narrated by: Robin Miles
- Length: 7 hrs and 26 mins
- Unabridged
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Two sisters, ages 10 and 16, are exiled from Brooklyn to Bird Hill in Barbados, after their mother can no longer care for them. The young Phaedra and her older sister, Dionne, live, for the summer of 1989, with their grandmother, Hyacinth, a midwife and practitioner of the local spiritual practice of obeah. Dionne spends the summer in search of love, testing her grandmother's limits, and wanting to go home. Phaedra explores Bird Hill, where her family has lived for generations.
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My absolute favorite book of all time
- By Eme on 07-16-15
By: Naomi Jackson
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We Are Not from Here
- By: Jenny Torres Sanchez
- Narrated by: Marisa Blake
- Length: 9 hrs and 31 mins
- Unabridged
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Pulga has his dreams. Chico has his grief. Pequeña has her pride. And these three teens have one another. But none of them have illusions about the town they've grown up in. Even with the love of family, threats lurk around every corner. And when those threats become all too real, the trio knows they have no choice but to run: from their country, from their families, from their beloved home. Crossing from Guatemala through Mexico, they follow the route of La Bestia, the perilous train system that might deliver them to a better life - if they are lucky enough to survive the journey.
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this book broke my heart and I love it.
- By Anonymous User on 03-29-22
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The Parted Earth
- By: Anjali Enjeti
- Narrated by: Deepti Gupta
- Length: 7 hrs and 48 mins
- Unabridged
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Spanning more than half a century and cities from New Delhi to Atlanta, Anjali Enjeti’s debut is a heartfelt and human portrait of the long shadow of the partition of the Indian subcontinent on the lives of three generations.
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Riveting
- By MSE on 05-14-21
By: Anjali Enjeti
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The Song Poet
- A Memoir of My Father
- By: Kao Kalia Yang
- Narrated by: Kao Kalia Yang
- Length: 8 hrs and 5 mins
- Unabridged
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Bee lost his father as a young boy and keenly felt his orphanhood. He would wander from one neighbor to the next, collecting the things they said to each other, whispering the words to himself at night until one day a song was born. Bee sings the life of his people through the war-torn jungle and a Thai refugee camp. But the songs fall away in the cold, bitter world of a Minneapolis housing project and on the factory floor until, with the death of Bee's mother, the songs leave him for good.
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Beautiful, full of sadness, power, and heart.
- By Melissa L. Magana on 04-27-17
By: Kao Kalia Yang
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A Lush and Seething Hell
- Two Tales of Cosmic Horror
- By: John Hornor Jacobs
- Narrated by: Almarie Guerra, MacLeod Andrews
- Length: 12 hrs and 40 mins
- Unabridged
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The award-winning and critically-acclaimed master of horror returns with a pair of chilling tales - both never-before-published in print or audio - that examine the violence and depravity of the human condition. Bringing together his acclaimed novella The Sea Dreams It Is the Sky and an all-new short novel My Heart Struck Sorrow, John Hornor Jacobs turns his fertile imagination to the evil that breeds within the human soul.
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Great idea, tarnished by modern politics
- By Phil on 04-28-21
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The Complete Stories
- By: Clarice Lispector, Katrina Dodson, Benjamin Moser
- Narrated by: full cast
- Length: 22 hrs and 53 mins
- Unabridged
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Here, gathered in one volume, are the stories that made Clarice a Brazilian legend. Originally a cloth edition of 86 stories, now we have 89 in all, covering her whole amazing career, from her teenage years to her deathbed. In these pages, we meet teenagers becoming aware of their sexual and artistic powers, humdrum housewives whose lives are shattered by unexpected epiphanies, old people who don't know what to do with themselves - and in their stories, Clarice takes us through their lives - and hers - and ours.
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Wonderful Collection
- By XX on 04-25-20
By: Clarice Lispector, and others
What listeners say about What Storm, What Thunder
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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- ooHIoo
- 02-09-22
View of a World I Did Not Know
These wonderfully interwoven characters showed me different aspects of a land I knew nothing about. The author brought me to know and care about each through this catastrophic event. A worthy read.
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- Lauren B
- 10-15-21
Absolutely stunning read!
This was my first historical fiction novel and it was one of those books that really makes you take a hard look at yourself. I felt like I gained a new appreciation for the artistry of writing and think Chancey did a fabulous job of developing her characters! The speaker was slow and deliberate with her words, really drawing you in with her expression. Fantastic read.
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- AuthorAnnaBella
- 03-15-22
We need the storm, the whirlwind, and the earthquake.
At a time like this, scorching irony, not convincing argument, is needed. O! had I the ability, and could reach the nation's ear, I would today, pour out a fiery stream of biting ridicule, blasting reproach, withering sarcasm, and stern rebuke. For it is not light that is needed, but fire; it is not the gentle shower, but thunder. We need the storm, the whirlwind, and the earthquake.
-Frederick Douglass (1852)
On January 12th, 2010, an earthquake measuring 7.0 on the Richter scale unleashed its wrath on Haiti. The devastation is insurmountable - a scene of indescribable life-altering trauma and disaster. Myriam J. A. Chancy author of What Storm What Thunder skillfully crafted a fictional novel with beautiful prose and rich themes depicting beauty within a disaster. Each theme honing on life-altering issues which included well-researched interjections of historical facts throughout the novel; all tied in effectively with current events. With clear and concise prose, the author navigates deftly through a complex narrative of Biblical, spiritual beliefs, scientific evidence, symbolism and so much more to shed light on something akin to Armageddon. The earthquake, often referred to as Douz, was told through the life experiences of ten main characters - all integral to the flow of the story. Ms. Chancy gave credence to the story as she allowed the characters to share their life experiences pre, intra, and post-earthquake, in Haiti and abroad.
"If you don't speak for the dead, who will?" - Concussion (2015) This novel was successful in eulogizing the estimated 300,000 individuals who succumbed to the devastation of the earthquake.
"And there fell upon men a great hail out of heaven, every stone about the weight of a talent: and men blasphemed God because of the plague of the hail; for the plague thereof was exceeding great." Revelation 16: 21
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- Simone D.
- 12-12-23
heart wrenching
The author takes us with several characters from all walks of life as they experience the Jan 12 2010 earthquake in Haiti and its aftermath. The book was heart wrenching , bringing to life personal experiences that may have only been reported as statistics by the international media. I enjoyed the narration, the accents, the use of Haitian Kreyol and real place names. What a resilient nation!
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- Barbara S
- 11-30-21
emotionally moving!
On Jan. 12, 2010, Haiti experienced a devastating earthquake that killed 300,000 and left millions destitute. I recall that earthquake and remember feeling very terrible for those poor people. Author Myriam J.A. Chancy has created an impressive novel that illuminates how that event crushed the souls of Haitians.
That event is akin to the USA’s 9/11. All Haitians remember exactly what they were doing and where they were when the earthquake hit or when they heard of the earthquake. Those who lived in Haiti are still haunted. Chancy tells that story through ten people. Each character’s story shows the levels of grief and tragedy endured from “the Event”. Some of the characters are interconnected. Chancy also includes Haitians living abroad and how their horror was multiplied by not being able to contact anyone in Haiti: are my friends and family alive? Are they hurt?
The first story, for me, was emotionally shattering: a mother who witnesses her two girls consumed by the earth and her little boy crushed. Her husband has left her, and she is alone, mourning with such force that your heart breaks. She is left alone in the dangerous displaced-person’s camp. Another character in this camp is a 15-year-old girl who hides from the packs of pillaging boys and men. Rape is frequent.
Chancy weaves other characters in the story in differing layers of desperation. I was crushed while listening to the audio of this story. Ella Turenne narrates the story with emotion. If I have one quibble, it’s that she used her voice for male characters’ thoughts. If they spoke, she used a male voice, but their inner musings were her own.
I strongly recommend this story, either in written form or the audio. That said, I wished I would have read it since I am more of a visual learner. Chancy’s prose are beautiful. This story illuminated the devastating impact that continues to ravage Haiti.
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- nancy
- 12-26-21
Mesi Anpil
I am a foreigner who came to Haiti on January 27, 2010 wanting to help. Haiti and her people captured my heart and is forever a part of my life.
This account of these individuals and their connections captures my experience of the stories I carry and the language and culture I respect.
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- Amazon Customer
- 01-20-22
Difficult
I tried three different times to listen to this story. I thought perhaps it was my frame of mind at each attempt that colored my response, but I am not sure. All I heard was anger, rejection and pessimism. With the world's current situation, I couldn't finish the tale. Maybe someday I will try again.
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