A World Turned Over: A Killer Tornado and the Lives It Changed Forever

by Lorian Hemingway

At 4:33 P.M. on March 3, 1966, the skies above Jackson, Mississippi, turned an ominous yellow before going suddenly and violently black. A tornado of the F-5 category -- the most lethal -- struck without warning. It tore roofs off buildings, twisted metal, blew out windows, threw cars into the air, and killed fourteen people -- thirteen of them in a newly built shopping mall, the Candlestick Shopping Center. The fury and destruction ended in seconds, but in those moments the tornado had ripped through the heart of a community, changing lives forever.
In A World Turned Over, Lorian Hemingway returns to the Jackson she knew as a child and tells the story of the Candlestick Tornado, as it came to be known. Vividly re-creating the terrifying day of the tornado, she recounts the miracles and tragedies that also happened that day -- including the story of Donna Durr, who with her baby was lifted in her car seventy-five feet up into the vortex, and of eighteen-year-old Ronny Hannis, who survived to help rescue others, oblivious to the danger to his own life. Decades later, the devastation of that single day continues to reverberate and affect those left behind.
Lyrical and haunting, A World Turned Over is an unforgettable story of awesome destruction -- and a powerful testament to the extraordinary resilience, faith, and heroism of ordinary people visited by fate.

256 pages, Paperback

First published July 1, 2003

Reviews

[Beth Toner · Rating 3 out of 5]

Well-written prose but it meandered a bit and the author, while gifted, felt a bit narcissistic.

[Jo · Rating 3 out of 5]

For a narrative nonfiction, I would have enjoyed this much more had the author been a bit less wordy and refrained from injecting herself into the story, which actually belongs to those who personally experienced the tornado.
There's a good amount of time wandering far afield - perhaps to give the reader a "feel" for the south - no shortage of dirt, rust, damp, haints, civil war dead, fried catfish and the sound of cicadas out of season.
Bright colors against "dark skin" captivates, evidently, but what that has to do with the tornado, I have no idea.
Some of the narrative dealing with growing up in the 60s struck a chord.
The chapters covering Linda and Ronny were more in line with what I had thought more of the book would be like.

[Mat. Anna]

A World Turned Over is notable not just for the narrative of the Candlestick Park tragedy, but for its literary merit. Lorian Hemingway is a granddaughter of Ernest Hemingway and apparently inherited his talent. This is not only the story of an EF5 tornado, but the story of a place and a time. Having grown up in the south myself I had almost visceral reactions to her descriptions. Ms. Hemingway lived in this neighborhood of south Jackson, MS, her house very close to the tornado's path, for several years before moving away. Shortly after she moved the tornado struck. She knew the people killed, the businesses destroyed. Many years later she traveled back to Jackson to talk to people involved who still lived there, to see if she could see the scars left by the tornado. Her story is as much a coming home story as a storm narrative. Few books describe the emotional impact a tornado can have more than this one. Highly recommended.