Hurricane is about a boy growing up and experiencing adolescence, that most ungainly of stages, during a time where everything is digitally connected, displayed and disseminated by your peers (and seemingly the world) online.
The beginning of Hurricane was uncomfortable for me to read. It had me thinking back to my teenaged years and those crazy, awkward feelings that come with trying to figure out who you are and where you fit into the world around you.
In some ways, it’s easier if you just subscribe to whatever genre or clique you want to hang out with. However, if none of those quite fit (as was the case for me) then you find yourself sort of wandering between groups and feeling on the outside of all of them. If you’re lucky, you’ll have at least one or two friends to help you navigate the dangerous channels. However, it’s a tenuous and precarious situation with plenty of hidden rocks lying beneath the surface. There are more than enough moments that can leave you feeling lost and alone.
As someone who is a bit older, I went through this period of my life with nothing more instant than a disposable camera to mark my passing. We didn’t have cell phones with cameras that could automatically upload to Facebook. We didn’t have webcams and texting or sites like Chatroulette. I graduated in 1995. We were just starting to understand what a website was and all that the internet could do. (<—Seriously, check out this link. It’s pretty amazing how accurate their predictions are!)
So, imagine what it is like for kids these days where their most awkward and embarrassing moments can be captured and displayed in an instant, and live on forever in perpetuity. That’s one challenge I absolutely do not envy this generation. The problem is compounded by the fact that a lot of kids are still developing their moral compass and sense of empathy. It’s all too easy to put a kid who doesn’t quite fit in down in front of everybody else. Poor Daniel is just such a kid and there is one scene in particular towards the beginning of the book that I cringe just thinking about.
As if life wasn’t being difficult enough for Daniel, he finds he’s living right in the path of the next big hurricane. All of a sudden, the nature around him starts to reflect his inner struggles and turmoil. I’ve mentioned this before, but it’s a funny thing about Mother Nature. She’s so mighty that you can’t help but be in awe of her. She has a way of making your everyday problems feel small and insignificant. She demands perspective, and sometimes a fresh start; which happens to be exactly what Daniel needs.
Daniel and his family are cut off from the outside world in the aftermath of the hurricane. As they emerge from their bathroom, they discover a place that has been leveled. There’s no power, the roof on their house has been damaged and the neighborhood looks like a bomb went off.
In the following days, Daniel helps to right the destruction around him. He meets his neighbors, helps fix the house, and works to heal wounded family relations. He begins to see that his contributions have value. That he has family that loves him and there is a place where he belongs.
This is a coming of age book about a boy struggling to figure out where he fits in and define his own purpose. He learns that he can make a difference and be empowered to contribute to his family and society. Not the amorphous society of the internet, but the real and tangible community around him.
This is also a book about how all the technology in the world can’t connect us if we don’t have our own sense of humanity. How many friends you have on Facebook, how many followers you have on your blog, what your Klout score is…it all doesn’t matter if you can’t see what’s important right in front of you.
Hugh Howey does a remarkable job creating a metaphor between technology, the feeling of being connected without ever knowing our neighbor, a teenager’s stormy coming of age and the actual nature and aftermath of a hurricane.
His prose and quality of writing is, as always, a beautiful illustration of how lovely our language can be. Just to give you an example, one phrase in particular stood out to me. When describing Daniel’s sister texting at the breakfast table, he wrote, “Her thumbs were like feet on a duck, paddling madly while the rest of her hovered serenely above.”
This isn’t a book you read for it’s action and adventure. In fact, the pace is rather sedate and calm, which may be surprising given the book’s title. This book unfurls like the first green shoot rising up from the ashes of a destructive fire. It is the hope and growth that slowly comes to replace the ravages of a storm. It is the way a boy finds his center and sense of purpose and, in doing so, takes his first steps into the role of becoming a man.
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