Gabriel Brownstein is the author of four books, most recently The Secret Mind of Bertha Pappenheim (PublicAffairs, 2024). He has won a PEN/Hemingway Award and a Pushcart Prize.
One December 24, Superstorm Mindy came in from the Atlantic and walloped America. Nowhere got it worse than New York City. That Christmas Eve day, Louise Wexler had planned to ride public transit all the way from her apartment in...