The Unpredictability of Storms

The book is bookended by depictions of the power, volatility, and danger of storms. In the first case, the depiction is of a human storm – the “tornado” of uncertainty, violent emotional eruptions, and sudden transformations of mood and circumstance associated with the election of Donald Trump to the Presidency of the United States in 2016. In the second case, the depiction is of a storm of nature –an actual tornado, bringing disruptive changeability, violent physical destruction, and experiences of completely random impact to the area in and around Elk City, Oklahoma, in 2017. The first storm foreshadows the second; the second metaphorically echoes the first.

The three-part narrative that unfolds between these bookending depictions of the unpredictability of storms contains considerations of both. Each of the three parts concerns the sometimes random, sometimes deliberate chaos caused by the “touchdown” of the Trump administrations into a different department...