H. Nigel Thomas launches
A Different Hurricane
Novel sheds light on how the LGBTQ+ community is treated in St. Vincent and the Grenadines
By Irwin Rapoport
January 22, 2025
Award-winning author H. Nigel Thomas is holding a book launch on January 30 at the Argo Bookshop at 7 pm for his 14th novel, A Different Hurricane, which features Gordon and Allan, friends from early childhood and, from age 17–29, lovers. While same-sex marriage is enshrined in Canada, it is not the case in other countries and the novel sheds light on the implications of such bans on individuals and society.

Courtesy of H. Nigel Thomas
A Different Hurricane climaxes in September 2017 while Hurricane Irma is battering the Caribbean. The story takes place in Montreal and Saint Vincent and the Grenadines where as recently as February 16, 2024, the High Court reaffirmed the criminalization of same-sex practices to the jubilation of the religious zealots and self-appointed morality squads, whose specious mission is ‘to protect our children from gays’. Same-sex sexual activity between men as well as women carries sentences of up to ten years in prison.
A longer synopsis of the novel can be found here.
“To feign being heterosexual and avoid being social pariahs or jailed, Gordon and Allan marry Maureen and Beth,” stated the press release. “For years the couple mask successfully. Trouble comes in the form of Maureen’s journal, revealed after her death.”
This is Thomas’ most personal book. “A Different Hurricane is the product of memories that haunt me: a woman shot dead by her boyfriend when she caught him having sex with a man; two men on the ‘down-low’ who along with their wives, died of AIDS; a man I once dated who gave me a false name and insisted that his wife was his sister; and my own almost-marriage,” he said, point out this was a difficult book to write. “After the third draft with Gordon as the single narrator, I let it sit for a couple of years before adding Maureen’s voice. Readers now witness both sides of this story; the anger, the rationalizations, the forgiveness. What I want is for this book to keep up the pressure for LGBTQ+ rights to sustain the discussion, especially in parts of the world that need it most.”
What I want is for this book to keep up the pressure for LGBTQ+ rights to sustain the discussion, especially in parts of the world that need it most.
– H. Nigel Thomas
Thomas replied to a few questions about the new novel and his career as a writer.
WM: Can you provide more details regarding the discrimination that LGBTQ+ individuals in the Caribbean face daily, how these biases are reinforced and if the situation is changing for the better?
Thomas: As regards St. Vincent and the Grenadines, trans individuals, gay men, lesbians, and cross-dressers (characters in drag) are harassed daily, called despicable names, threatened with violence, and sometimes beaten up. Politicians, too, participate in this. One wished he could burn all gays alive; another used “Bu’n Chi-Chi Man,” a song that advocates death to gays, as part of his election campaign. LGBTQ+ teachers and civil servants risk being fired if they affirm their sexual orientation. It happened to someone I know.
WM: How would you describe your writing style and when did you realize that writing was a career choice for you? Do you ever show early drafts to friends for their thoughts and suggestions?
Thomas: I aim for a conversational style. Ernest Hemingway, James Baldwin, and Mark Twain are my models. I wrote and directed a few plays in my late teens back in St. Vincent, but I didn’t see myself as a writer then. Writing took hold, first in the form of poetry, when I was 28. At Université de Montréal, I showed two pieces of fiction to Hugh Hood. The result was the publication of my first piece of fiction and the preliminary work on my first novel Spirits in the Dark. Now I belong to a writers’ group where we offer critiques of one another’s work.
WM: How do you select your themes and to what extent are they based on your life story and experiences in St. Vincent and Montreal?
Thomas: My imagination, what the ancients called the muse, does the work. An image, in the case of poetry, obsesses me and eventually blossoms into a poem. In the case of fiction, a character takes hold of me, and I feel forced to discover why. My poetry is autobiographical. My fiction is only so because the themes emerge from the issues that preoccupy me.
‘I wrote and directed a few plays in my late teens back in St. Vincent, but I didn’t see myself as a writer then. Writing took hold, first in the form of poetry, when I was 28.’
– H. Nigel Thomas
WM: Can you describe the themes of some of your previous novels?
Thomas: Fatherhood – parenting on the whole – colonialism, the shadow of slavery, religion, transcendence, identity, self-worth, battling LGBTQ stereotypes – are some of the themes I explore in Spirits in the Dark, Return to Arcadia, and the first three volumes of The No Safeguards Quartet: No Safeguards, Fate’s Instruments, and Easily Fooled. The fourth volume, And Then Again Begin, will be published next year. It focuses heavily on the link between religion and homophobia. Behind the Face of Winter, my second novel, portrays the experiences of Caribbean immigrant teens in the Montreal school system.
WM: What advice would you share for aspiring authors and who were your mentors?
Thomas: I have already mentioned one mentor: Hugh Hood. In terms of writing skills, I learned from the many writers I studied at university or read on my own. To aspiring writers, I say read and observe what writers do, then write and rewrite. Participating in workshops helps. If you are asking writers to critique your work, don’t send them a first draft. First drafts are usually no more than brainstorming.
Feature image: Ludvig Hedenborg, Pexels
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Irwin Rapoport is a freelance journalist with a bachelor’s degree in history and political science from Concordia University.
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