Summary
Ma Lou is an old woman who works in a market in Port-au-Prince. Her story begins on November 25, 2014, four years after the earthquake that devastated Haiti. Ma Lou remembers visiting her mother before she died, and how her mother cried out, “I have no bones.” Due to age and sickness, Ma Lou’s mother was all skin and bones; so at the time, Ma Lou did not understand what her mother meant. When her husband was still alive, Ma Lou would constantly refer to him as “My Lou;” so eventually people started calling her Ma Lou. Ma Lou’s husband, Lou, and mother were both vodousaint, or practitioners of vodou. They prayed to the old gods and left offerings. But Ma Lou attended Catholic school as a girl during which she converted and left the old gods behind. At the time, Ma Lou considered herself lucky to have gotten an education that taught her to read and count. Now, after the earthquake and all the devastation, Ma Lou wonders if it would be better to believe in the old gods rather than the Catholic god who has caused so much harm.
Ma Lou lives alone. Her husband died young and her only son, Richard, moved abroad and left Ma Lou to take care of his daughter Anne. Now Anne is also overseas, studying. Ma Lou recalls Jonas, an eleven year old boy who she used to dote on, who reminded her of her son Richard. Before the earthquake, Jonas lived across from the market. He regularly bought eggs from Ma Lou. Like everyone else, Jonas’s family was tight on money and Ma Lou would send him on errands and deliveries as a way for him to earn a little of his own money. Ma Lou laments that Jonas and his two younger sisters were killed in the earthquake. The grief and trauma of this caused Jonas’s mother to lose her hold on reality.
Ma Lou relives the moment of the earthquake: how the earth buckled and moved. Afterward, all the women of the market sprang into action. They used whatever tools they could find, forks, umbrellas, to try and dig out those who were trapped under the rubble. Some they were able to save, many they were not. Everyone was covered in white dust from the crumbling of concrete buildings, the air rang with voices screaming for help and phones ringing. Even worse, was when their sounds slowly faded as many of those who were trapped died. The women of the market offered prayers and food to those in need. In the present, Ma Lou tries to offer what little solace she can to those who come to the market looking for a little peace. She listens to them, absorbing their words and stories.
The second chapter is narrated by Jonas’s mother, Sara, in July 2010, six months after the earthquake. Sara, the mother of three, is living alone in an Internally Displaced Persons (IDP) Camp in Port-au-Prince. As a child, Sara grew up in a small shack with her grandmother. As her grandmother neared death, she sent Sara to live with her aunt, uncle, and five cousins. Sara met Olivier in an accounting course and the two married and had children, Jonas and two girls. Theirs was a happy home, full of love and noise. Sara was content with their simple life, but Olivier dreamed of material wealth. Sara by contrast only had one dream: a bed big enough for the whole family to sleep in together, all her loved ones in one space, inseparable.
Sara thinks back to the day of the earthquake on January 12, 2010. At times Chancy refers to the earthquake as Douz, 12 in Haitian Creole, named after the date it occurred. It started off as a normal day. After school, the girls went outside to play and Sara sent Jonas to the market to buy an egg from Ma Lou. Jonas enjoyed his errands to the market which made him feel grown up. Yet, instead of coming straight home, Jonas went to the neighbor’s house where everyone gathered to watch TV. After the earthquake struck, Sara found her two girls trapped under the neighbor’s house, alive. They cried for help for hours, but were dead by the time they were finally dug out. When Sara saw their broken, mangled bodies she walked away, saying those husks were no longer her children. The rescue teams found Jonas, bloody but alive, and Olivier rushed him to the hospital. His leg was so badly crushed that they had to amputate it. Initially, Olivier took care of giving him medicine. Yet after a few weeks, as a red infection traveled up what was left of Jonas’s leg, Olivier took off and Sara remained to take care of their dying son. Despite efforts to clean the wound and give him medicine, Jonas died a month after the earthquake. Sara was left in the camp, alone, with her life torn apart.
In the camp, people live in tents and water and food are scarce with people waiting in long lines for what little there is. As the number of dead mount, people no longer have the time, energy, or resources to properly care for the dead. They are taken away unceremoniously and the survivors pick over the dead’s possessions like vultures. Sara retreats from the horror around her. She describes herself as “crossed over,” in an in-between world where she sees the shadows of ghosts. She follows these silvery shapes around the camp, blind and deaf to the living people around her. She stops showering and lays in her bed all day. Those around her believe she’s gone mad after the death of her three children. However, some try to help her: a neighbor, Loko, provides Sara drinking water and women help bathe Sara. In her tent, someone leaves her a piece of paper with the phrase “Nou se wozo;'' Sara is reminded of Olivier who used to call her wozo or reed. Sara guards this paper and keeps it in her bra.
Sara begins to feel a mysterious tug on her elbow while she's sleeping. Sara does not want to be reminded of her children and, at first, tries to ignore the tugging. But the third time it happens Sara starts to wonder if it’s her daughter’s spirit. She designs a test to ascertain whether it's her daughter’s spirit or another malevolent spirit. Since evil spirits are attracted to salt water, Sara gathers water in little containers around her bed; she fills half with salt water and half with fresh. Falling asleep, Sara wakes to the tugging and tickling. In front of her she sees a little girl dipping her hands into both types of water. Sara then sees a second pair of hands, both pairs she recognizes. Talking to her daughter’s spirits, Sara apologizes for leaving their bodies on the ground and asks where their father is. The girls’ spirits only giggle in response. Sara brings a candle closer to them but the girls disappear. As Sara raises the candle, the side of the tent catches fire. Sara stares absentmindedly as she sees the words on the side of the tent “A gift from the American people” go up in flames. Loko, Ma Lou, and a young man and woman she does not recognize cut through the burning tent to get her out. Sara is calm as she watches the tent burn around her, for she believes her children have gone to bring Olivier back to her.
The third chapter is narrated by Sonia who is working at a hotel in Port-au-Prince the day the earthquake hits. Sonia comes from a poor family, her mother worked her whole life as a domestic worker in the homes of the wealthy. Sonia has chosen a different path for herself; she hopes that sex work will help her escape a life of poverty and servitude. Sonia works with Dieudonné, who helps her get male clients. Dieudonné wakes up on January 12 with a feeling of foreboding that soon spreads to Sonia. A man at the hotel who eyes Sonia all day adds to their feeling of unease; he reminds her of the vodou god of death. In the afternoon, the two decide to get some fresh air and shake off the feeling of tension. Just as they reach Dieudonné’s motorbike, the earthquake strikes. They are lifted up into the air and watch as the hotel behind them collapses to the ground. With a sinking feeling they realize everyone who was inside is probably dead.
The two hop on Dieudonné’s motorbike and head out to check on Sonia’s family. Sonia sends money home to support her family: her parents, her brother Paul, and sister Taffia. Although there are questions about where she gets the money, they remain unspoken. Sonia worries about Paul who is small, closed off, and sullen. As a child, Paul suffered sexual abuse by a priest and Sonia wonders if that’s why he is the way he is. Sonia clings to Dieudonné as the motorbike weaves through the destruction of the city; they see bodies, collapsed buildings, and everyone caked in white dust. On the drive, Sonia thinks back to when she met Dieudonné at seventeen. Both grew up poor. Dieudonné, who was born with a heart condition, was raised by an uncle after his father left and mother died. His uncle raised Dieudonné to be physically strong to withstand his heart condition. As Dieudonné grew up, he realized he was gay, just as his uncle. Dieudonné and Sonia met at a club and instantly connected. Dieudonné worked as a fixer, getting services for people: drugs, sex, cars etc. Sonia by this point had already begun sex work. Each finding a way to survive and with a dream of escaping poverty, having a house of their own, living as the wealthy do. From that day forward, they decided to work together. The love and intimacy between them is that of a brother and sister. Sonia herself is attracted to women. She finds hope and intimacy with the women she sleeps with, chooses them herself rather than men choosing and desiring her.
Sonia thinks back to the day her mother took her to one of the houses she worked in. As a ten year old girl, Sonia was in awe. She had never seen so many beautiful, luxurious objects in one place. Sonia was struck by how similar she looked to the young girl of the wealthy family. Later, Sonia would find out that she and the girl shared the same biological father. Her mother was forced to have sex with her employer, a fact that she hinted at but never discussed outright. But Sonia remembers when she was younger that her mother switched employers many times and that her father served time in jail after he picked a fight with one of her mother’s employers. This darker side of domestic work hardens Sonia’s resolve to never take a job like her mother did. Back in the present, Sonia thinks of how many of the women she worked with. Like her, they all dreamed of escaping their circumstances and now, Sonia realizes, most of them were probably crushed beneath the hotel. When she and Dieudonné arrive at her father’s house they find it too has collapsed. Their only option is to search for signs of life.
Analysis
Each chapter in What Storm, What Thunder is narrated by a new character, and all of the characters are connected in some way with one another. The narrative is nonlinear, and covers events from before the earthquake, the day of the earthquake on January 12, 2010, and up to four years after it takes place. In each chapter, Chancy portrays individual experiences of a national tragedy, through varied perspectives and reactions. With their interlocking stories, she builds each character's narrative both through their own eyes and that of others.
Chancy portrays the marketplace as a meeting point for society. Despite the deep class divisions, everyone needs to buy food and eat. Although Ma Lou considers herself a lowly market woman, she has a keen awareness of people and society. In the market, she is surrounded by bounty and decay. The rotting fruit serves as a metaphor for human death: fruit and humans alike returning to the earth. Ma Lou understands the way the earthquake devastated not just individuals’ lives, but the fabric of society. Ma Lou believes the people of Haiti are lost and need to regain the ability to stand up for themselves and care for one another. Ma Lou serves as a witness to everyone’s stories in the novel, offering a listening ear, taking on their stories of death, loss, and trauma as a way of offering peace and healing.
Chancy explores how different characters cope with the trauma of the earthquake. Sara’s life, like many others, is completely torn apart by the earthquake. Sara’s pain is so raw and gaping that she dissociates from reality. She refers to her children’s bodies as “it” and “thing” as a way of distancing herself from the pain, theirs and her own. Yet this tool for survival also haunts her with guilt she feels for not giving her daughters a proper burial. In the IDP camp, she retreats further into a shadow world of ghosts and they become more real than the living around her. Sara is only vaguely aware of nameless hands who help her bathe. Sara’s memories of her loving family highlight the depth of her loss. The deep contentment and gratitude she felt for their simple life appear in stark contrast to the emptiness of her current life in the camp.
Even as Sara is lost in her grief, she clings onto a thread of hope that Olivier is still alive. The scrap of paper with wozo written on it is taken from a Haitian proverb, “Like reeds we bend, but do not break.” This proverb speaks of resilience and hope, a theme Chancy explores in the novel. Sara has withdrawn into herself, and the tugging she feels at night seems to be an attempt to pull her back. In the ritual, Sara speaks to her daughters’ spirits and asks for forgiveness. Sara’s efforts to make peace with the dead is an act of survival, a part of moving through grief and loss.
Sonia witnesses the deep inequalities in Haiti. Sonia grows up seeing how hard her mother works, always surrounded by luxury and comfort but none of it is for her. As a child, Sonia was keenly aware of the material differences between her and the girl she would find out was her half-sister. Sonia feels that she is looking in a mirror: seeing an alternative reality, a life of comfort and privilege that she could have had. Sonia’s realization that she is the product of rape prompts her to choose a different line of work. As a sex worker, Sonia is seen and desired by the wealthy, and she makes them pay for their desire. In doing so, Sonia finds a sense of agency.
Both Dieudonné and Sonia break the sexual norms of society: Dieudonné as a gay man and Sonia as both queer and a sex worker. While the path they have chosen is deemed immoral, their circumstances have provided few alternatives. They strive to escape poverty and achieve their own dreams: a home of their own, a sense of freedom, comfort, and security. These similarities enable them to forge a deep connection with and acceptance of one another. They protect one another, which is showcased the day of the earthquake. The man they see is a personification of death, an ominous warning of what is to come. From the beginning, Chancy imbues the novel with spirituality: characters who are in touch with, and able to perceive this spirituality, often have a better chance of surviving the earthquake and its aftermath.
