Moloka'i - Alan Brennert

Moloka'i - Brennert, Alan

Summary: Dreaming of far-off lands away from her loving 1890s Honolulu home, seven-year-old Rachel is forcibly removed from her family when she contracts leprosy and is placed in a settlement, where she loses a series of new friends before new medical discoveries enable her reentry into the world. 17,500 first printing. - (Baker & Taylor)


Kirkus Reviews
A gritty story of love and survival in a Hawaiian leper colony: more a portrait of old Hawaii than a compelling narrative.The chronicle of leprosy-infected Rachel Kalama begins in 1891 in Honolulu and ends in the late 1960s on isolated Moloka'i, site of the Kalaupapa Leprosy settlement. As much a record of her life as of the changes in Hawaii itself over the years, screenwriter and fantasy author Brennert (Her Pilgrim Soul, 1990, etc.) vividly and graphically details both the landscape and the disease as he tells Rachel's story. She's five at the start, when her father, a sailor, comes back in time for Christmas with another doll for her collection and gifts for her older siblings Sarah, Ben, and Kimo. A few months later, Rachel is found to have leprosy, and the happy life the family has enjoyed ends. Considered dangerously contagious, Rachel is sent to the settlement on Molaka'i. There, in a hospital run by Catholic nuns, she lives with other young girls affected in varying degrees. As the years pass, Rachel's friends die; she befriends Sister Catherine, whose affection will sustain her; but, with the exception of her father, she has no contact with her family. Poor Rachel is doomed not only to suffer horribly but also to bear witness to history: a history that includes the end of the monarchy, the US annexation, the arrival of movies and airplanes, the Depression, and Pearl Harbor. Brennert also details changes in the treatment of leprosy--herbal injections, surgery, and, finally, the cure in the 1940's: sulfa derivatives. While Hawaii changes, Rachel grows up, falls in love, and marries Kenji, a fellow patient. She bears a daughter, but Ruth must immediately give the child up for adoption to avoid infection. Amid the heartbreak, Kenji is murdered and Rachel's symptoms worsen (she loses the fingers of her right hand). Rachel, though, is a survivor, and unexpected reunions compensate as she returns to a much-changed Honolulu.Not a comfortable read, but certainly instructive.Agent: Molly Friedrich/Aaron Priest Literary Agency Copyright Kirkus 2003 Kirkus/BPI Communications.All rights reserved.

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House of thieves - Kaui Hart Hemmings

House of thieves - Hemmings, Kaui Hart

Summary: In a series of tales featuring complex upper-class Hawaiian families, a single mother discovers an adult magazine in her son's room, a man struggles to understand his wife's abandonment, and a son is disillusioned by his father. - (Baker & Taylor)

Booklist Reviews
Just as the individual land masses that make up the Hawaiian Islands are worlds unto themselves, so, too, are the characters Hemmings depicts in this penetrating exploration of the nature of families and the individuals who belong to them. Disappointment and isolation, frustration and regret inform each story's conflict, whether it is a father unprepared to raise his 10-year-old daughter while her mother lies in a coma, as in "The Minor Wars," or a pack of teenage girls flirting with independence in "House of Thieves." Hemmings takes her characters' cues from the composition of the islands she knows so well, their volcanic cores smoldering just beneath the surface, either forced to lie dormant or prone to violent outbursts. Set against the tropical backdrop of sun, sand, and surf, Hemmings' stories are all the more surreal for their perceptive juxtaposition of tumultuous emotions within such a seemingly benign paradise. With a dynamic and imaginative voice, Hemmings infuses her stories with keen insight, and lavishes her characters with profound empathy. ((Reviewed April 15, 2005)) Copyright 2005 Booklist Reviews.

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House of many gods: a novel - Kiana Davenport

House of many gods: a novel - Davenport, Kiana

Summary: Working with the injured following a hurricane on the island of Kauai, Ana, a physician abandoned by her mother and raised by native Hawaiian relatives, has an encounter with Niki, a Russian documentary filmmaker with his own turbulent past. - (Baker & Taylor)

Booklist Reviews
/*Starred Review*/ Ana Kapakahi, the abandoned child of an ambitious mother, is raised in a household of ruined vets and women without husbands. She nourishes her anger and resentment toward her mother into adulthood, while in medical school, and during a bout with breast cancer, rebuffing every effort at reconciliation. Ana and her beloved cousin Lopaka--a returned Vietnam vet--are the first of their generation to attend college, promising to brighten the economic prospects for their large, unruly family even as their native Hawaiian paradise is threatened by nuclear testing. During a hurricane on the island of Kauai, Ana meets Niki, a Russian documentary filmmaker, and her perspective on the world, as seen from her tiny island and her close-knit community, changes drastically. They are two profoundly injured people from polar-opposite backgrounds, but their appreciation for the sanctity of the earth and the importance of culture to individual identity forms a powerful attraction. Davenport, author of the critically acclaimed Song of the Exile (1999), again works magic with evocative descriptions of place--lush Hawaii and frigid Russia--and poignant portraits of humans with all their flaws. ((Reviewed December 15, 2005)) Copyright 2005 Booklist Reviews.

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