by @AnnieDaylon
THURSDAY’S STORM
“The sea stops for nothing.”
That line from Thursday’s Storm jumped at me because it fed right into my new novel, Of Sea and Seed, which is centered around the 1929 Newfoundland tsunami. My gratitude to Darrell knows no bounds for my work sits squarely on the shoulders of his research: his creative nonfiction account of the nameless hurricane that hit Placentia Bay on August 25, 1927 comes straight from the hearts and souls of the victims’ families.
Thursday’s StormWhen the crew of the fishing schooner Annie Healy left their home port of Fox Harbour, Placentia Bay, on Wednesday, August 17, 1927, no one could have imagined what fate held in store for them. Times were hard in Newfoundland that year. On shore, wives of the crew were often worked to exhaustion, even more so while their men were at sea. Most had lost parents, siblings, or children to tuberculosis. Each family had at least one tragic story. But when a hurricane struck Placentia Bay on August 25 of that year, a tragedy unlike any they had lived through would unite these people in ways untold. Now, eighty-six years later, the full story of the ill-fated vessel and her crew is told for the first time. The closeness of the crew and their families, and how they worked together to ensure their little community survived, is relived through the memories of children of the crew, stories passed down from their mothers, and reports from the last men to see the schooner afloat.
As a native of Placentia, I grabbed this book on Kindle to sneak a glimpse at the lives of those who came before. Then I bought a print copy for my father who remembers the event and the people affected by it.
As an author of a novel set in that era and area, I gobbled up Duke’s details about life at home and on the sea, details that engage the senses and plank the reader down, right there
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in the kitchen, where “…a round, cast iron pot shivers, its cover clanking like mad from a fit of dancing hot water inside.”
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in the garden, where one must lift “… the clothesline as high as possible out of the reach of the sheep that think nothing of standing on their hind legs and eating a shirt or pair of pants.”
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in the fields, where “Long black rats scurry through the wet grass.”
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on the wharf, where “Empty barrels for bait are rolled up splintery wooden planks and onto the deck…” and
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on the schooner, where “Darkness creeps in from every corner of the earth as the Annie Healy cuts through the black water…”
Darrell Duke’s talents are not limited to the written word. He is a musician who first penned this as a song, The Annie Healy; next came a play, and then this book.
Thursday’s Storm is a stirring depiction of lives dependent upon, and devastated by, the sea which (and Darrell said it best) “stops for nothing.”
Many thanks, Darrell!
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The Book Nook
I originally come from the island of Newfoundland but right now I’m coming to you from the island of my sofa. I have the flu and, due to my husband’s medical history and resulting weakened immune system (detailed in 
And now… I’m looking for some good reads while I remain quarantined on the couch, Kindle at the ready. Any suggestions?
