WE HOLD OUR BREATH

A Houston native explores the city’s relationship to the storms that have posed a perennial threat to its existence.

In 2017, Fields, who works as a fly-fishing guide on the Missouri River, drove from Iowa to Houston. Though ambivalent about returning, the destruction wrought by Hurricane Harvey had “unlocked a spell of sudden and lucid conviction” that compelled him home. That journey became the basis of this book, about the people, such as land speculator Augustus Allen, and historical forces—like early-19th-century American expansionism—that created Houston from a “sucking bowl” of swampland. Accompanying Fields on his travels was a friend and fellow former Marine named Nigel. Together, they toured post-Harvey devastation by boat, observing how destroyed neighborhoods “seethed, in the humid, post-storm heat, like giant and filthy altars to loss.” As the narrative develops, the “deep water[s]” against which Houston had always fought become a metaphor for personal pain and suffering. Fields reveals that Harvey provided “the neutralizing circumstance of real emergency” that allowed him and the “fierce and restless” bipolar mother from whom he had grown distant to “see each other freshly, without baggage.” At the same time, obligations created by the hurricane helped the author revive closeness with Nigel, who had tested him with years of maddening inconsistency. A year later, Fields returned alone to observe the lingering aftereffects of Harvey on the oil industry that had enriched Houston but also created refineries susceptible to toxic emissions, especially in the wake of massive storms. During such storms, writes the author, “most refineries and processing facilities shut down their monitoring systems, turning a blind eye to malfunctions.” In this brief yet memorable book, Fields creates an unsentimental yet poignant story that examines the complexities of one man's homecoming. With eloquence and grace, the author investigates the interconnectedness of place, history, and identity.

A thoughtfully elegant, reflective work.