{"id":3961,"date":"2021-02-25T19:39:13","date_gmt":"2021-02-25T19:39:13","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/sites.rutgers.edu\/books-we-read\/?p=3961"},"modified":"2021-03-04T16:10:30","modified_gmt":"2021-03-04T16:10:30","slug":"staff-picks-hurricane-season","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sites.rutgers.edu\/books-we-read\/staff-picks-hurricane-season\/","title":{"rendered":"Staff Picks: Hurricane Season"},"content":{"rendered":"<figure id=\"attachment_3995\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-3995\" style=\"width: 300px\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\"><a href=\"http:\/\/sites.rutgers.edu\/books-we-read\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/248\/2021\/02\/Hurricane.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-3995\" src=\"http:\/\/sites.rutgers.edu\/books-we-read\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/248\/2021\/02\/Hurricane-300x225.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"300\" height=\"225\" srcset=\"https:\/\/sites.rutgers.edu\/books-we-read\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/248\/2021\/02\/Hurricane-300x225.jpg 300w, https:\/\/sites.rutgers.edu\/books-we-read\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/248\/2021\/02\/Hurricane.jpg 640w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/><\/a><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-3995\" class=\"wp-caption-text\"><br \/>TowPath entry in New Brunswick after Hurricane Sandy in 2012 (Image credit: J. Ward)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Last semester, I was tasked with finding a short story for Tales We Read, the Fall 2020 semester recreational reading program at Rutgers \u2013 New Brunswick. I quickly realized I would like to choose a story by memoirist David Sedaris.<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u00a0Sedaris contributes frequently to <\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">The New Yorker<\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">, and he was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Letters in 2019. Sedaris is also known for narrating his own work. He rose to fame after narrating his essay \u201c<\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.npr.org\/transcripts\/788367771\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">The Santaland Diaries<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u201d on<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400\"> NPR&#8217;s<\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400\"> Morning Edition<\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">, and he has been nominated for two Grammy Awards.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">I chose <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.newyorker.com\/magazine\/2019\/12\/02\/hurricane-season\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Hurricane Season<\/span><\/a><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">, <\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">for the most part, because the 2020 Atlantic hurricane season was the most active on record. Hurricane Season<\/span> <span style=\"font-weight: 400\">details the very real cost of<\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Hurricane_Florence\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400\"> 2018\u2019s Hurricane Florence<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">, examining how the effects of climate change will not be felt equally. Sedaris lost an unoccupied vacation house, while permanent North Carolina residents lost their only homes and, in some cases, loved ones.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Meteorology aside, this story also plays with themes of family dynamics and tumultuous relationships. David often vacillates between siding with his sisters and staying loyal to his long-term boyfriend, Hugh, whose temperament shifts as often as the weather. In fact, this is one of the few stories of Sedaris\u2019s that features his relationship with Hugh. The two seem like an odd pair\u2013\u2013Hugh is a talented painter, redecorating their home with Picasso replicas, while David feeds gummy worms to ants. Hugh\u2019s temper and desire for propriety often clash with David\u2019s eccentric family (including his sister <a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Amy_Sedaris\">Amy<\/a>, a well-known actress and comic in her own right). Sedaris has even admitted in an <a href=\"https:\/\/www.irishtimes.com\/culture\/books\/david-sedaris-s-lockdown-diary-i-destroy-everyone-i-m-a-fitbit-friend-of-1.4285286\">Irish Times<\/a> article that he and Hugh are used to spending long amounts of time away from each other, but they have gotten along extremely well during the Covid-19 lockdown. By narrating colorful and seemingly mundane details of his life, Sedaris prods at how relationships work. Who will accept your truest self, and who will hold you when the wind picks up and the floodwaters rise?\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">The story was originally published in <\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">The New Yorker<\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400\"> on November 25, 2019. You can read more about Sedaris\u2019s house, the Sea Section, in his internationally bestselling essay collection <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/rutgers.primo.exlibrisgroup.com\/discovery\/fulldisplay?docid=alma991031162346204646&amp;context=L&amp;vid=01RUT_INST:01RUT&amp;lang=en&amp;search_scope=MyInst_and_CI_2&amp;adaptor=Local%20Search%20Engine&amp;tab=Everything_except_research&amp;query=any,contains,calypso,AND&amp;query=creator,contains,david%20sedaris,AND&amp;mode=advanced&amp;offset=0\"><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Calypso<\/span><\/i><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">. <\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Last semester, I was tasked with finding a short story for Tales We Read, the Fall 2020 semester recreational reading program at Rutgers \u2013 New Brunswick. I quickly realized I &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/sites.rutgers.edu\/books-we-read\/staff-picks-hurricane-season\/\" class=\"\">Read More<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1242,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[33,27,32],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3961","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-cookreads","category-little-free-library","category-rugrat"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v23.5 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Staff Picks: Hurricane Season - Books We Read<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/sites.rutgers.edu\/books-we-read\/staff-picks-hurricane-season\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Staff Picks: Hurricane Season - Books We Read\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Last semester, I was tasked with finding a short story for Tales We Read, the Fall 2020 semester recreational reading program at Rutgers \u2013 New Brunswick. I quickly realized I &hellip; Read More\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/sites.rutgers.edu\/books-we-read\/staff-picks-hurricane-season\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Books We Read\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2021-02-25T19:39:13+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2021-03-04T16:10:30+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"http:\/\/sites.rutgers.edu\/books-we-read\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/248\/2021\/02\/Hurricane-300x225.jpg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Julie Rossano\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Julie Rossano\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"2 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/sites.rutgers.edu\/books-we-read\/staff-picks-hurricane-season\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/sites.rutgers.edu\/books-we-read\/staff-picks-hurricane-season\/\",\"name\":\"Staff Picks: Hurricane Season - Books We Read\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/sites.rutgers.edu\/books-we-read\/#website\"},\"primaryImageOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/sites.rutgers.edu\/books-we-read\/staff-picks-hurricane-season\/#primaryimage\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/sites.rutgers.edu\/books-we-read\/staff-picks-hurricane-season\/#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"http:\/\/sites.rutgers.edu\/books-we-read\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/248\/2021\/02\/Hurricane-300x225.jpg\",\"datePublished\":\"2021-02-25T19:39:13+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2021-03-04T16:10:30+00:00\",\"author\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/sites.rutgers.edu\/books-we-read\/#\/schema\/person\/8120f2d29030f654fd983a3a69257017\"},\"breadcrumb\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/sites.rutgers.edu\/books-we-read\/staff-picks-hurricane-season\/#breadcrumb\"},\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/sites.rutgers.edu\/books-we-read\/staff-picks-hurricane-season\/\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/sites.rutgers.edu\/books-we-read\/staff-picks-hurricane-season\/#primaryimage\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/sites.rutgers.edu\/books-we-read\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/248\/2021\/02\/Hurricane.jpg\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/sites.rutgers.edu\/books-we-read\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/248\/2021\/02\/Hurricane.jpg\",\"width\":640,\"height\":480,\"caption\":\"TowPath entry in New Brunswick after Hurricane Sandy in 2012 (Image credit: J. 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