Benjamin Taylor's TALES OUT OF SCHOOL on KUHF FM's The Front Row

Tales Out of Ike
St. John Flynn
KUHF FM 88.7 Houston, September 13

Holed up at the station as KUHF deals with Hurricane Ike and we work to get as much information about what's happening where out to our listeners, I've got some down time and want to put it to good use.

Ike has been my first experience of a hurricane, and obviously in such a situation our regular concerns get swept away with the first elevated winds of the storm. But now that the eye has passed us by and left its indelible mark, I can write a blog entry that has some cultural relevance.

It occurred to me as the winds reached hurricane force last night and prepared to make landfall at Galveston that about 10 years ago I read an excellent novel set against the backdrop of the infamous hurricane of 1900 that completely devastated the coastal city.

Galveston, Texas, was struck on September 8th, 1900, by a Category 4 storm that packed winds of 135 mph. Official reports state that 8,000 people lost their lives making the "Great Storm" (this was before authorities began assigning alphabetical names to tropical storms) the U.S.'s deadliest natural disaster to date.

At the end of the 19th century, Galveston was a boomtown with a population of 42,000. It was the biggest city in Texas, and it's trade center. The Great Storm put paid to Galveston's pre-eminence, and Houston grew to fill the void.

The hurricane significantly changed the course of Texas history.

Benjamin Taylor's debut novel, Tales Out of School (Grand Central Publishing, 1997) is set against the Great Storm and the havoc it wreaks on the Mehmel family. The year is 1907, and Felix Mehmel, whose father died in the hurricane, is coming of age in Galveston among the members of his German-Jewish family, a family that seems to be disintegrating.

For the full post, click here.

To hear the interview with Benjamin Taylor, check out KUHF's website.