Then when the hurricane comes, we see this really large catastrophe and how their skills in dealing with their day-to-day challenges really help them.' What Storm, What Thunder by Myriam J. 'As we go through this story, we see how they manage these smaller day-to-day catastrophes or difficulties that people in this condition must live with and overcome. As we go through this story, we see how they manage these smaller day-to-day catastrophes or difficulties that people in this condition must live with and overcome.

And, of course, there are a lot of untimely deaths on this account. The whole community suffers from civic neglect. It's how people who live so close to the margins - like this poor Southern family, a poor Black family - it's really due to the racism that they face.

'The hurricane is the climax of the novel, but it's really about how the hurricane is a large culminating catastrophe. 'One of the most important things about the novel is that while Esch does not have a mother, she has found, at 15, that she's pregnant, and she's basically trying to keep that from her family while this is all happening. Jesmyn Ward on exploring the stories of America's South But the rest of the family just goes about their business. Their father, who no one really listens to, is the one who believes that there's going to be a major hurricane. Sadly, their mother died several years before, during the birth of their littlest brother. He's mean, he's lazy and he's an alcoholic. 'The narrator, narrating in the first person, is a 15-year-old girl named Esch. She has three brothers and a kind of a no-count father. It's really about the life that the Batiste family leads up to the hurricane.

'I think a lot of people believe, because of the title and because it's always described with the hurricane up front, that the hurricane is central to the entire story - but it's really not. Salvage the Bones is a novel by Jesmyn Ward.

Salvage the bones synopsis