A Storm of Infinite Beauty
In March 1964, a terrible earthquake hit Valdez, Alaska, causing devastation and loss of life. The psychological reverberations from this disaster carried on for many years afterwards in the lives of the people who survived it. In this dual-timeline novel, one such person, Valerie, is a fictional character who then goes on to live a famous life in Hollywood after this experience. In the current time, a museum established in Valerie’s honor in her hometown of Nova Scotia is run by the second major character in this story, Gwen, who is a relative of Valerie’s and no stranger to grief herself. Gwen crosses paths with Peter, an aspiring writer, who has come across potentially new and previously unknown information about Valerie before she became famous. The novel unfolds in two periods of time, beginning with Gwen and Peter looking for what happened to Valerie before her years of fame occurred, while the actual events of Valerie’s life are interwoven with their ongoing pursuit.
The reader is swept along on a tide of sadness and grief in both time periods that is then followed by a sense of hope and beauty unfolding in the lives of both Gwen and Valerie. The beauty of the physical landscape after a disaster becomes a metaphor for the sense of beauty that can emerge after grief. The perfectly apt title comes from words written by the naturalist John Muir, who conceived of the universe as a place of both violence and beauty.
