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Volcano
This memoir that covers eight years dominated by the awakening, eruption, and still-grumbling aftermath of Montserrat's Soufriere volcano is an acutely written account of the impact of the eruption on the life and viability of this small Caribbean island.
- GenresMemoirNonfiction
120 pages, Paperback
First published June 30, 2006
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Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews
July 5, 2016
I couldn’t put this down. Beautifully written and wrought with an overwhelming sadness, Weekes’ memoir about Soufriere Hills, a dormant volcano on the Caribbean island of Montserrat which roared to life in 1995, packs much into few pages.
If you’re looking for a technical accounting of the events of the destruction of Montserrat, this is not for you. If you’re looking to try to understand what it must have been like to be there and how it affected those who lived there, then this is what you’re looking for. This is a painful walk—so unimaginable it almost feels like fiction—through how the volcano destroyed the lives of so many. Through Weekes’ eyes, we watch a world, and a way of life, die.
Similarly, though, this is also a character/conflict/crisis/change story, in that we watch this woman, who loses her identity and all she holds dear, find her inner strength—and herself—again. It's anything but an inconsequential memoir, is instead a moment-to-moment chronicle of her inner conflict from the day the mountain woke up until the day she was forced to leave.
Perhaps most powerful is the rendering of how this tragedy impacted everything else in her life; her description of a post-eruption break-up is nothing short of stunning: “…When it ends I have terrible nightmares. The flames are once again rolling down the hills. A deep black mud is covering up all my life’s bricks. All my lavender dreams are on fire. I am more bereft than ever. The loss of him is so great that…I actually hear my heart splintering” (p. 102). Poems she wrote throughout the crisis pepper the manuscript, but they are seamlessly integrated, not feeling as though a random poem was stuck in there "just because."
I was not expecting, when I read this book, to come away so grateful for all that I have, and so full of respect for anyone who has the strength to face such adversity and survive better for it; reading this truly changed my perspective on life. If you are looking for a powerful—but brief—read, this is for you.
If you’re looking for a technical accounting of the events of the destruction of Montserrat, this is not for you. If you’re looking to try to understand what it must have been like to be there and how it affected those who lived there, then this is what you’re looking for. This is a painful walk—so unimaginable it almost feels like fiction—through how the volcano destroyed the lives of so many. Through Weekes’ eyes, we watch a world, and a way of life, die.
Similarly, though, this is also a character/conflict/crisis/change story, in that we watch this woman, who loses her identity and all she holds dear, find her inner strength—and herself—again. It's anything but an inconsequential memoir, is instead a moment-to-moment chronicle of her inner conflict from the day the mountain woke up until the day she was forced to leave.
Perhaps most powerful is the rendering of how this tragedy impacted everything else in her life; her description of a post-eruption break-up is nothing short of stunning: “…When it ends I have terrible nightmares. The flames are once again rolling down the hills. A deep black mud is covering up all my life’s bricks. All my lavender dreams are on fire. I am more bereft than ever. The loss of him is so great that…I actually hear my heart splintering” (p. 102). Poems she wrote throughout the crisis pepper the manuscript, but they are seamlessly integrated, not feeling as though a random poem was stuck in there "just because."
I was not expecting, when I read this book, to come away so grateful for all that I have, and so full of respect for anyone who has the strength to face such adversity and survive better for it; reading this truly changed my perspective on life. If you are looking for a powerful—but brief—read, this is for you.
August 16, 2020
Yvonne Weekes’ memoir documents the social, emotional and spiritual impact caused by the 1995 eruption of Soufriere on the Caribbean island of Montserrat. It digs deep, revealing the ways in which trauma and natural disaster rips lives apart – but it also speaks of finding inner strength, of bodies that refuse to break however much weight is pressing down on them, and of the lengths we go to just to survive.
Grief and loss are central themes. The loss of family, friends, home. Faith. Laughter, the ability to make love, memories. Things we may consider unlosable, because they’re such a core part of who we are and what we believe the world to be. And what happens when they’re taken away? 'There
are days when I feel suspended like a balloon, drifting, drifting in the upper atmosphere. The world seems to have stopped. There are days when I feel faceless. Even when I look in the mirror I can’t see myself.'
The memoir is a reminder that when crisis hits and the fleshy, comforting parts of our lives are torn away, we sometimes see more clearly the things that are hidden under the surface. Here the bones of systemic racism and colonialism reveals itself. The complete incompetence of authorities to manage any form of crisis reveals itself. The manipulations of a story-hungry press reveals itself. How well-intended gestures from strangers and even from friends can be laced with cruelty and ignorance. In the turmoil, all of these things are thrown to the surface and laid bare.
It is difficult not to make comparisons with our current situation, with covid – although comparing one trauma with another is never helpful, or easy, and in a sense removing Weekes’ experience from the specific context of what happened in Montserrat is to do her a great injustice. But it is to her credit that the work speaks so specifically about this moment in time, but also so universally about things that can touch us all. And this universality may bring some comfort, and the ability to heal, to readers going through their own personal trauma.
Grief and loss are central themes. The loss of family, friends, home. Faith. Laughter, the ability to make love, memories. Things we may consider unlosable, because they’re such a core part of who we are and what we believe the world to be. And what happens when they’re taken away? 'There
are days when I feel suspended like a balloon, drifting, drifting in the upper atmosphere. The world seems to have stopped. There are days when I feel faceless. Even when I look in the mirror I can’t see myself.'
The memoir is a reminder that when crisis hits and the fleshy, comforting parts of our lives are torn away, we sometimes see more clearly the things that are hidden under the surface. Here the bones of systemic racism and colonialism reveals itself. The complete incompetence of authorities to manage any form of crisis reveals itself. The manipulations of a story-hungry press reveals itself. How well-intended gestures from strangers and even from friends can be laced with cruelty and ignorance. In the turmoil, all of these things are thrown to the surface and laid bare.
It is difficult not to make comparisons with our current situation, with covid – although comparing one trauma with another is never helpful, or easy, and in a sense removing Weekes’ experience from the specific context of what happened in Montserrat is to do her a great injustice. But it is to her credit that the work speaks so specifically about this moment in time, but also so universally about things that can touch us all. And this universality may bring some comfort, and the ability to heal, to readers going through their own personal trauma.
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Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews