September 23, 2010: Page Turners 7 p.m.

Book: Isaac's Storm by Erik Larson

Discussion:

We had a good turnout at this month’s discussion of Erik Larson’s Isaac’s Storm. The book received a warm reception as well, with eleven of the thirteen members attending giving the book a thumbs up vote. The remaining two readers voted sideways.

Isaac’s Storm is the third work the Page Turners have read by Larson. We read Devil in the White City in 2004 and Thunderstruck in 2009. The general consensus was that Isaac’s Storm was a good read, but not quite as good as Devil in the White City. The only drawback mentioned was the book’s somewhat choppy flow. However, one Page Turner suggested that this flow mirrored the choppiness of the storm itself and its trajectory.

In addition to the book’s style, we also commented on its characters, Isaac Cline in particular. As the title character, I expected Isaac to play a large role in the book and to be a benevolent character. Instead, he seemed a bit conceited, and Larson pointed out more than once that Isaac exaggerated about the amount of people he warned about the storm and the number of lives he saved. One of the group members remarked that Isaac always appeared concerned over whether he did the right thing by leaving the weather station and going home to his family. With so many people taking refuge in his house, it seemed that he did in fact make the right decision.

We also discussed the resentment between Isaac and his brother Joseph. The book made it sound as if most of the problem was Joseph’s jealousy of Isaac. It was unclear to me whether that jealousy was justified, if Joseph had a case of “sour grapes”, or if his contributions were under-appreciated and disregarded. I actually preferred Joseph over his brother. Whereas Isaac seemed to mention the number of people he saved who were not members of his family fairly frequently, Joseph was the one who grabbed his two nieces and jumped out the window with them as Isaac’s house collapsed.

Many of the group members stated that the book inspired them to do research on the events we read about, which is an admirable goal of any good work of non-fiction. Several readers went online and to print resources to look for pictures of the Galveston Hurricane of 1900. Some of these Page Turners brought this supplemental material to the meeting with them. One of the items we passed around was a newspaper that contained photographs of the hurricane’s destruction.

I must confess I also did some research after reading the book. I finished my reading near the anniversary of Hurricane Katrina. Afterward, I wanted to compare the strength of these two hurricanes and a third, 1992’s Hurricane Andrew. According to the National Hurricane Center, the Galveston Hurricane of 1900 remains the deadliest storm in the United States since 1851, with an estimated 8,000 fatalities. Hurricane Katrina ranks third on this list with 1,500 deaths. I was unable to locate Hurricane Andrew on this list, which cataloged all storms between 1851 and 2006 that caused over twenty-five deaths. The accompanying article did, however, mention Hurricane Andrew as the second costliest hurricane in the United States during that timeframe.

We could not avoid touching on the topic of Hurricane Katrina after reading this book. It seemed as if almost everyone in the group knew someone who was affected by that storm directly or indirectly. We also discussed the government’s involvement during and after the storm. One group member said she hoped many lessons were learned as a result of the levy situation, the events at the Superdome, and general reaction to the storm.

We also discussed tornadoes, since we see those more frequently here in the Garland area. One Page Turner brought up the Jarrell tornado, a powerful F5 cyclone, which hit the Central Texas town in May of 1997, in addition to two F2 tornadoes which touched down in the same area on the same day.

We concluded the meeting by discussing the effect the hurricane had on Galveston. At the turn of the century, Galveston and Houston were vying with each other for recognition as the premiere port city in Texas. After the hurricane, Galveston could no longer compete with Houston and has since never recovered the prestige it once enjoyed. It did, however, gain its famous seawall as a result of the storm of 1900.

As usual, flyers for upcoming programming were distributed at this month’s meeting. Group members also turned in their ballots for voting on selections for next year’s reading list. The list will be revealed next month, at which time we will be discussing Stieg Larsson’s The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo.