"Rainy days should be spent at home with a cup of tea and a good book."
~Bill Watterson
When April rolls around the ditty “April showers bring May flowers” plays in my head. That got me thinking about fictional rain, fictional drought, fictional storms and other imaginary weather. To welcome in this changeable season, here are seven novels where meteorological phenomena play an important role.
Salvage the Bones by Jesmyn Ward
Weather event: Hurricane
Jesmyn Ward delivers a gritty but tender novel about family and poverty in the days leading up to Hurricane Katrina.
Bangkok Wakes to Rain by Pitchaya Sudbanthad
Weather event: Extreme humidity
"Recreates the experience of living in Thailand's aqueous climate so viscerally that you can feel the water rising around your ankles." --Ron Charles, Washington Post
Wuthering Heights by Emily Brontë
Weather event: Furious storms
This 19th century novel, featuring the famous Catherine and Heathcliff, is drenched with furious storms, fatalistic love and phantoms.
One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel García Márquez
Weather event: Rains, floods and windstorm
One of the most influential literary works of our time, One Hundred Years of Solitude tells the story of the rise and fall, birth and death of the mythical town of Macondo through the history of the Buendiá family.
History of the Rain by Niall Williams
Weather event: Rain
History Of The Rain is part bildungsroman, part family saga and part the story of Ireland itself. It is also the “rain-sodden history of fourteen acres of the worst farming land in Ireland".
Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston
Weather event: Hurricane
Their Eyes Were Watching God brings to life a Southern love story with the wit and pathos found only in the writing of Zora Neale Hurston. From Wikipedia: The hurricane that symbolizes the climax of Hurston's story also has an historical inspiration; in 1928, "a hurricane ravaged both coastal and inland areas of Florida, bringing torrential rains that broke the dikes of Lake Okeechobee near Belle Glade.”
Good Hope Road by Lisa Wingate
Weather event: Tornado
Wingate has written a genuinely heartwarming story about how a sense of possibility can be awakened in the aftermath of a tragedy to bring a community together and demonstrate the true American spirit.”—Booklist