¿Why a Book?
Eight Hurricane Maria Stories from Puerto Rico began as a makeshift story during one of Puerto Rico's many blackouts. Hurricane Maria hadn't happened yet. The first tale spread its wings on the night of Hurricane Irma, which brazed Puerto Rico's shores a couple weeks before Maria took more accurate aim. On the night of Irma, I was in Guaynabo in the kitchen of my girlfriend's childhood home. I was asked for a story after the lights left us. I told my girlfriend, her mom, her uncle, and my dog (if he's capable of listening) a story about the truer than true origin of hurricanes. I made it up as I went along, so it involved the Lost City of Atlantis, demigods on vacation, and embezzled dimensions. I whistled for my dog to signal the story's end, and the storm spared our island. Irma was a dud. She didn't deliver the same destruction to Puerto Rico as she had to the rest of the Caribbean. She was a passing footnote, and my story would've shared