The One Maryland One Book 2024 theme is “Restorative Futures.” This year’s selection, What Storm, What Thunder by Myriam J. A. Chancy, tells the story of an earthquake of 7.0 magnitude that shakes the capital of Haiti, Port-au-Prince. 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.

Find What Storm, What Thunder in print and digital formats in the catalog.