Literary Lotus has been all work and no play...that is until tomorrow when I jet off island for a much needed, well-deserved holiday.
My biggest challenge? Finding books I can bring that I don't mind leaving behind when I'm done.
Suggestions are always welcome.
A Trace of Smoke | By Rebecca Cantrell | Forge | 300 pages
Reviewed by Christine Thomas
Published 6.28.09 in the Honolulu Advertiser
In her earnest debut “A Trace of Smoke,” Rebecca Cantrell transports readers to pre-World War Two, 1931 Berlin, and the puzzling murder of Ernst Vogel, a cabaret “chanteuse” and baby brother of spunky protagonist turned crime-solver Hannah Vogel.
In the novel’s evocative and clever beginning, Cantrell precisely lays out the necessary context to launch the story from the first “dark” scene (Cantrell repeats this word throughout the first paragraph), when Hannah recognizes Ernst in a photograph posted on the Hall of the Unnamed Dead. But when she immediately meets with two policemen—one sporting an SS button—to gather material for her work as a crime journalist, she has keeps quiet and hides her grief. Cantrell’s tidy twist is that Hannah and Ernst have loaned their identity papers to help Jewish friends escape to America, and she can’t let it be known that Ernst is dead until the friends are safe in America.
While the growing Nazi movement and its anti-Semitism are inescapably central to the novel, Cantrell’s choice of era and location stems mainly from an interest sparked while studying for three years in Berlin. The backdrop, of course, has inherent appeal, but it also allows Cantrell to play with stereotypically repressed German interaction through formal dialogue, and to ground her story in real aspects of history. For instance, Ernst sings at the El Dorado, a gay club that became a Nazi headquarters in 1932, and becomes involved with Ernst Röhm, an openly gay, decorated WW Two soldier who aided Hitler’s rise to power. And Cantrell’s well placed period details, such as noting one train passenger reading the Berlin paper and the other the “Nazi rag,” Vogel’s dearth of food and persistent hunger, and Ernst’s affinity for absinthe subtly but effectively evoke atmosphere.
Rising above politics and place is Hannah, who is a likable and captivating protagonist, both vulnerable and strong. Cantrell draws her a solid foundation, from striking independence to firm socialist politics and burgeoning feminism, but despite this savvy, her crime writing experience, and her commitment to finding Ernst’s murderer, at first Hannah is surprisingly a slow on the uptake as an amateur detective. And even though Cantrell largely unfolds clues so that Hannah and readers put the pieces together at once, there are flaws in the suspense, and in Hannah’s observations. Even when answers have been plainly stated, Hannah keeps questioning repetitively, while other times there’s simply no justification for events other than plot function.
But as Cantrell sifts through Hannah’s relationship with Ernst, such as her disapproval of his relationship with an older, controlling Rudolf who “had turned him from a serious student into a chanteuse,” Hannah’s (and Cantrell’s) skills sharpen. And about halfway through the novel, the pieces set and the mystery really picks up speed, delighting with surprising twists—complete with the intrigue of a famous jewel belonging to a Bavarian Count, revelations of Ernst angering “the leader of the most powerful private army in Germany,” Hannah finding her own romantic lead and love for a mysterious young boy who endearingly speaks like a 1931 Berlin film character.
This compelling momentum overshadows any minor hiccups, and as Cantrell’s debut finishes with flourish, Hannah Vogel lives on in the imagination, and one might hope—in a future installment.
I first got hooked on Seth Greenland's work around this time last year, when I reviewed his sharp, hilarious, timely, and simply fun to read novel Shining City (well, more like praised it) for a magazine.
Now that it's out in paperback, I thought it a good time to spend some time talking to Seth about what he's reading, and writing these days.
If the interview below doesn't tell you all you want to know, read more about Seth on his web site, or on his blog at The Huffington Post.
Seth Greenland | Author of Shining City
Q&A with Christine Thomas, June 2009
Q. What are you reading these days, Seth?
A. I just finished "Christine Falls" by Benjamin Black and "Motherless Brooklyn" by Jonathan Lethem.
Q. What brought you to these crime novels?
A. I'm currently working on a crime novel and since I’m not a crime writer, I've been reading crime novels by writers who aren’t thought of as crime writers. It helps me get a sense of how writers who are usually more character-driven get a handle on genre writing.Q. Black is even a pseudonym, of John Banville, whose journal-like novel “The Sea” won the 2005 Man Booker Prize. And Jonathan Lethem also writes sci-fi and autobiographical fiction, right? Do their crime novels share any traits from their other work?
A. I'm a fan of Banville as Banville, which is one of the reasons I was interested in checking out his incarnation as Benjamin Black. What I noticed is that Benjamin Black writes as beautifully as John Banville does, which makes me wonder why he bothers with the pseudonym. Does he think he's slumming on some level? Does Mr. Booker Prize think he can't be seen writing crime fiction? That can't be it since he made no real effort to disguise himself, so who knows?
As far as Lethem goes, "Motherless Brooklyn" contains a brilliantly drawn character placed in the middle of what amounts to kind of a shaggy dog story. Like the Benjamin Black book, it was beautifully written, but unlike the Black book, I didn't particularly care about what was happening and found it to be kind of a slog. I should add that I am a minority here among my friends, most of whom think it's brilliant.
Q. Why do they—your friends, and are they writers?—think “Motherless Brooklyn” is brilliant, and what for you made it a slog?
A. Yes, it's my writer friends who think it's brilliant. And maybe it is. I'm not weighing in on its brilliance. I just found it boring. And it's hard to put my finger on exactly why. The plot was serviceable, the main character was unusual and sympathetic, but the book took me six weeks to get through. I was thoroughly unengaged. In the end, we experience all art viscerally so not matter how much I might admire "Motherless Brooklyn," it left me cold.
Q. Yet you kept with it for six weeks—an eternity in some readers’ lives. Why not just toss it aside as an example of what not to do?
A. I attribute my need to finish "Motherless Brooklyn" to my own neurosis. Everyone I know who read that book really liked it, so I thought I should keep going until I started liking it, which unfortunately never happened. I don't regret finishing the book. I admire it, actually. I just didn't enjoy reading it. I'm trying to think of another example of this kind of experience and the best I can do is "Bleak House," another one I forced myself to finish. It's the only Dickens novel I had to fight my way through.Q. I had to force myself through every Dickens’ book, though I think that was due mostly to me being a young girl in Hawaii reading about a place totally foreign in comparison. I’d fall asleep on the sofa every time. Anyway...What did "Christine Falls" help you learn about the genre?
A. I can't imagine reading Dickens while in Hawai'i. So bizarre. On the other hand, the first time I read “On the Road” I was in Oxford, England, as a twenty-year old and, weirdly enough, it was the perfect place to encounter that book because it was like an antidote to the environment.
The Black book exists as a superb example of the genre, much like John Le Carre's thrillers and, as such, did not teach me anything new. It simply affirmed what I already knew, but in silvery tones. I'm still stuck on his use of a nom de plume. I'd have been happy to have my name on something like "Christine Falls."
Q. Perhaps using “Banville” ruins his street-cred in the crime fiction world, if there is such a thing?
A. I don't think the crime world is judgmental about that kind of thing. Look at Graham Greene who wrote straight ahead thrillers along with books that were more literary. He categorized his thrillers as "entertainments" but he put his own name on them. In Banville's case, I would have guessed he was more concerned with the judgment of his literary peers, but then he never made any effort to truly disguise his identity. Perhaps it’s just a game he plays with himself. He's a terrific writer no matter what name he's writing under.
Q. So what did Christine Falls affirm exactly, or what do you already know about crime fiction, and is that guiding your own new novel?
A. The only principle guiding my new novel is my desire to entertain myself. If I find it compelling, I hope someone else might. There are certain crime tropes that I'm using—a murder, a law enforcement person, etc.—but I hope I'm configuring them in a new way. It's certainly not a straight-ahead crime novel. There are so many people already doing that better than I could ever hope to. I'm just using the genre to get at themes that interest me and create characters I want to spend some time with.
Q. This new book follows on the heels of “Shining City,” your latest novel about to be released in paperback. It flirts with crime in that the protagonist Marcus Ripps unsuspectingly falls into what he thinks is a legitimate business that turns out to be a front for a criminal operation. It’s also smart, entertaining, and compelling as you watch Marcus evolve and grow more confident. Was this first flirtation with “crime writing” intentional?A. So many books that we think of as classics are "crime" stories. "Les Misérables" is a crime story, "The Great Gatsby," too. "Huck Finn" is a crime story when you think about it for a moment. So was my flirtation with crime writing intentional? Not really. I didn't conceive of the book that way, although, using my elastic definition, it's obviously a crime novel, too. So is my first novel, "The Bones," by the way. I'm interested in bad behavior, people under stress behaving in extreme ways. As we know, this often leads to the committing of crimes. Hence, my interest in "crime fiction."
Q. So how will this new book be a departure for you?
A. It's set in a place I haven't written about—the desert—and is about a milieu—politics—I have only blogged about on the Huffington Post. But for someone interested in bad behavior, it's hard to find a better venue than the political world.
Q. You blogged recently about your recent feelings of political optimism, and how it seems that anything can happen, since Obama is anything but irrelevant despite, well, everything. Are the desert politicians in your book going to compel us to ditch our pessimism, too?
A. I suspect they will have the opposite effect, although in an entertaining way.
Q. I guess we’ll have to wait and find out. But, just because you were stuck on Banville’s name change, I’ve got to ask—if crime writing required a pseudonym (I know it’s a stretch) what would yours be?
A. Martin Amis. I think I'd sell more books that way.
On Monday we need some fun (or not so fun, but important) facts:
~ Did you know that Honolulu has its own version of the Amazing Race? The Gaymazing Race is June 27.
~ Bonnie Friedman who does PR for David Paul's Island Grill on Maui (among other companies), is blogging every day about what she sees and does at the Venice Biennial--her photos make it seem like you're there...almost.
~ Get another inside look at the Biennial in Geoff Dyer's fantastic novel (two dueling novellas, really), Jeff in Venice, Death in Varanasi
~ Always wanted chickens but thought your yard was too small? Omlet has a cool, if pricey, solution. You can also read about organic chicken farms in The Omnivore's Dilemma: A Natural History of Four Meals.
~ So maybe you didn't read the book, The End of the Line: How Overfishing Is Changing the World and What We Eat--but now you can watch the film. Check out the trailer for the film version of Charles Clover's essential missive, daring you to face the truth that we are running out of fish.
Here's a group after my own heart. The Invisible Library project catalogues fictional books that exist purely in fictional works, such as CAULFIELD, D.B.: The Secret Goldfish—from J.D. Salinger's The Catcher in the Rye or TAYBACK, F.L. ("Four Leaf"): Tropic Thunder—from the Ben Stiller film Tropic Thunder.
Now they've begun their first solo exhibition, transforming a gallery space in London's Cecil Court into "an imaginary library filled with books that have been alluded to in novels, but have never actually existed...until now." They've chosen forty titles from the Invisible Library blog, and illustrated the covers.
The INK group will be in-residence for one month, through July 9, hosting workshops and events. And, by the end, these once non-existent books' pages will be filled--by attendees and workshop participants who are free to "sign-out" these "library books" and start or continue the newly created narratives penned within.
Don't I wish I could pop in.
I have my own answer to this question, (I'll save posting it for when someone asks me), which was engendered when, in the midst of procrastinating about a lot of reading and writing that needs to be done, and after cleaning up various areas of my house, I came across a very cool new site called Dear Literary Ladies.
Nava Atlas has this month begun combing through female author's books, letters, interviews and such for their advice about everyday writers' pressing questions, and poses them in Q&A format. That means questions such as Should I Take Time Off Work to Write Full Time? (that one's answered by Flannery O'Connor), and a paragraph where Anais Nin "tackles" a writer's audience and purpose.
Rumor has it Atlas may be going on a summer work-holiday, so even if new posts are slow in coming, I still think Dear Literary Ladies is a site to watch.
Under Maui Skies and Other Stories
By Wayne Moniz
Koa Books; 135 pages; $14.95
“Each island has its own legends, history and dialect,” explains playwright Wayne Moniz at the start of his new short story collection “Under Maui Skies.” Though it’s questionable whether most readers will need this or further explications of island history, let alone the brief pronunciation guide and glossary, Moniz’s contextual observation of island diversity is actually an unintentional but fitting echo of the book’s own remarkable range.
The result of a personal challenge to branch out into fiction, Moniz’s collection features seven stories set on Maui in different time periods and genres, from a classic western to a UFO science fiction tale. Thirteen elegant kaona follow, but with the exception of his previously published poem ‘Wailuku, 1957,’ they at first seem merely indulgent afterthought. Instead the cynosure is the stories, which promise and delivers the unexpected, bringing myth, legend and place to life in a distinctive way. This innate success makes it easy to overlook small problems with prose, such as awkward phrasing like “Kaui turned over frustratingly to face the full moon,” and Moniz’s tendency to mimic script pacing with significant time jumps and dialogue that reads like stage direction.
Amongst rich imagination and personification of the natural world, the tales remain grounded by a thoughtful foundation of historical and personal fact. The title story, a surprisingly natural western, has origins in conversations with former old-timer Haleakala Ranch workers who claim the villain who Ramon, the protagonist, is tasked with apprehending was real. However, Moniz doesn’t shy from important creative liberties, and starts out with romance as Ramon innocently sleeps with his cattle as “A thousand stars glistened in the heavens,” and ends with comedy instead of tragedy.
The real-life forbidden love of royal siblings Nahienena and Kauikeaouli is also resurrected in ‘The Cruel Sun,’ during a time where “old ways were despondently clashing with the new” and the lovers yearn for “the kind of peace we had before ‘progress.’” Here Moniz’s message is a bit heavy handed, as it is in ‘The Cave of Whispering Spirits,’—a blend of two tales about a family who raises chickens for Pele’s pleasure and two lovers who refused Pele hospitality—where Moniz portrays past destruction to warn against modern development currently threatening to “silence the [c]ave.”
In ‘Aunty Becky’s Tavern,’ Moniz explores intimate personal history, tracing his father’s wartime experience in Guadalcanal after the start of World War Two, a hazy, time travel story where one specific place—the old Kihei watering hole—remains constant. Others are simply for personal fun, such as the humorous and spot-on echo of classic 1930s noir in ‘Aloha Sweetheart,’ which starts out shining with evocative sentences like “In kona weather, thieves got itchy fingers, punks beefed, and dames plotted,” before burning out in a muddled ending.
Ultimately, “Under Maui Skies” fulfills Moniz’s aim “to preserve the memory of a time that is slipping away,” offering an enjoyable snapshot of cultural and personal lore, and is a timely reminder that, as one of the collection’s most memorable stories, Luahinepi'i, an original evocation of the legend of the climbing woman of ‘Iao Valley shows—not knowing our history doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist.
--Reviewed by Christine Thomas
Published 6.14.09 in the Honolulu Advertiser
Since IONA is currently debuting their newest performance, The Living Earth (last days June 11 and 12) I thought it a great time to revisit Cheryl Flaherty's reading appetite. I've reprinted the full interview for the first time, below.
Creative Director, Iona Contemporary Dance Theatre
Q&A with Christine Thomas
Edited version published 9.08 in the Honolulu Advertiser
Q. What are you reading?
A. Right now I’m almost finished reading Eckhart Tolle’s “A New Earth: Awakening to Your Life's Purpose.” This is his newest book that Oprah featured with an online class, which I have not been involved in but I am aware of it.
Q. How did you discover it?
A. That’s how I found out about it. It was so amazing for us to find out that Oprah was featuring a very new age, consciousness-driven book to such masses. I think it’s the first time there’s been a worldwide online discussion about something that has to do with consciousness-raising.
Q. Is this typical of the books you read and how you find them?
A. No, sometimes I just go to the bookstores and use my intuition. I definitely judge a book by its cover and have found some amazing books that way just lying off to the side. I work intuitively as an artist and also choose my books this way. I also did read his other book “The Power of Now: A Guide to Spiritual Enlightenment,” so his work is definitely of interest to me. I also like the title of this book because it relates to my work. It’s perfect timing because I’m focusing the marketing of the company to reflect the messages contained in my work, which have a lot to do with consciousness, humanity and t
Q. How does it connect to your work?
A. Well, I’m a little bit of a self-taught butoh artist and I really merged my butoh training with my new-age awareness into something that I think is very unique. So I’ve been teaching all of these principles of consciousness development and witness, and diminishing of the ego and non-judgment—and that’s exactly what this book is about. He’s been really able to clarify what I know well in a different language, so it allows me to be reflective on my work and also validates my work. So those are the two things. I’m heavy with the highlighter in this book—so it’s a little life-changing for me.
Q. Does Tolle’s book give you a new language to use as you begin bringing Iona performances to other parts of the world?
A. Number one, I think it does help support my language in my teaching and my work with the dancers, because it validates a lot of things I’ve been talking about for years by had no basis for. Number two, it really tells me that the world is finally ready for my work. A lot of the time I’ve been ahead of the wave in a way, and been afraid to write the word consciousness in a grant proposal for instance. That this book was such a hit and featured by Oprah it tells me that the world is interested in what Ive been doing for years. We’re just starting a new 3-year marketing program to market Iona outside Hawai'i. And the biggest thing we can offer is the spirituality in our work. There’s a lot of personal gain to his book, too. It really tries to get you to understand the power of the present moment and the diminishment of the ego—that the ego doesn’t exist in this present moment. It’s very anti-goal, anti-success orientated. So for me on a personal level it helps me to be able to experience that even stronger in my world and my daily life.
Review | 'The Lassa Ward': Lessons in a deadly virus and life in general Edited version published 6.7.09 in the Miami Herald
The Lassa Ward: One Man's Fight Against One of the World's Deadliest Diseases. Ross I. Donaldson. St. Martin's. 270 pages. $24.95.
Just as the H1N1 virus spreads across countries and continents, infecting our consciousness with fresh fear, The Lassa Ward arrives to remind how lucky we are, graced with specialized, if costly, medical care and a general health we take for granted while cushioned in what author Dr. Ross Donaldson calls “a cocoon of safety.”
Donaldson’s detailed memoir takes us inside Sierra Leone and Liberian refugee camps in the summer of 2003, during his intrepid firsthand education in the deadly West African Lassa virus. Before cutting into the meat of this journey, however, the narrative sets off with two contrived and disconnected beginnings—a dramatic journal entry, which reads as if invented, then a short prologue where Donaldson lies prone in a modern hospital, seemingly a superfluous attempt to engage readers’ interest in discovering whether Donaldson contracts Lassa during his volunteer work.
Once the central story begins, it’s hampered still by Donaldson’s unsuccessful attempt at literary description—regrettably overwritten prose crowded with obvious, often repetitive details and qualifiers; such lines as “The lumbering transport bucked in stubborn protest as a lone light drew us down into flickering shadows,” trip up pace rather than sketching a vivid scene.
Yet once this bumpy road is traveled and Donaldson arrives in the southern Sierra Leone border town of Kenema, both the writing and the story flow uninterrupted, buoyed by Donaldson’s earnest, idealistic reflections. Though he spends just two months at the world’s only Lassa facility, nearly every day is accounted for chronologically, combined with perceptive observations on race relations, faith, politics, and the diamond trade, without giving any topic undue weight or attention.
The book is also packed with intense soul-searching, including Donaldson’s continual question of whether “coming to Kenema was a brave idea or just insanely stupid.” As he learns and observes, readers do, too, though at a comfortable distance from Lassa—a highly contagious viral hemorrhagic fever, like Ebola, that in an unbelievably terrifying effect causes late-stage victims to leak blood and fluid from every orifice—experiencing the adventure, worries, and mystery of medicine.
For Donaldson, confronting the virus was the “ultimate test” of his oath to care for the sick, and though he was the only Lassa volunteer, he wasn’t alone in his humanitarian effort. His dialogue with colleagues are among the book’s most evocative, and each person takes on a larger than life quality, whether their role is malaria control, water improvement or health care. Donaldson rightly paints them as “childhood comic-book heroes” with “their own ‘superpower’ to do good.”
The real hero, though, is clearly Donaldson’s mentor Dr. Conteh, who dedicated his life and career to the Ward’s Lassa patients. And when Conteh departs unexpectedly for two weeks, Donaldson the med student must step up and become a “real” doctor, diagnosing, treating, and devising unique solutions to care for patients in while lacking crucial medicine and supplies. These two weeks are the heart of the book, and after they are up, both Donaldson’s time at the Ward and the novel wind down. though not before a continuation of the prologue.
Today Donaldson continues his humanitarian work abroad. But The Lassa Ward is testament to one of his greatest lessons, that ``regardless of geography . . . human anatomy is universal, as is human emotion.''
I used to believe that sentence, but now I know better. Now I know that it was meant to be.
Here's how it happened."
First lines of Hothouse Flower and the Nine Plants of Desire: A Novel by Margot Berwin
Out this month from Pantheon.
Please Step Back. Ben Greenman. Melville. 254 pages. $16.95 in paper.
Whether authors or entertainers, artists must continually travel back to the well to retrieve creative inspiration. Luckily Miami-raised New Yorker editor Ben Greenman has once again extracted a sharp, ebullient novel from his well, one with inherent star quality and sparkling prose that, for the moment at least, shines brighter than any previous work.
“Please Step Back” opens in 1954 Boston and centers on eleven-year-old Robert Franklin. Perfectly paced backstory soon fast forwards to 1963 after Robert has discovered the guitar, joined a band, and begun inventing a mythical life. He changes his name to Rock Foxx, then moves to San Francisco where “[n]ew smells popped like corn,” and “[c]hange—real change, not the word, but the thing—was in the air.” He talks of starting his own band with his old friend Tony, then talk becomes reality and Foxx transforms into a convincing musical icon whose dimensions unfold along the timeline of his talent.
At first the novel’s third-person narrator sticks close to Foxx, who even walks larger than life, “with a rolling walk, shoulder over hip, hip under shoulder.” These sections resound with crisp language tuned to the era’s slang, as Foxx speaks to everyone in mesmerizing riddles and rhymes. When dialoguing with Tony their conversation volleys back and forth with no sign of stopping, until it does. With promiscuous Yvette, the band’s female singer, it’s like they’re reciting poetry or performing a ditty. Every observation sings, whether a taut revelation of grief when the bassist “Lucas was so quiet he was loud,” noting a girl’s dress was “an unripe-apple green,” or evoking the hum of the band’s first moments on stage.
Still, it’s a welcome break between sets when the narrator begins to alternate sections centered on Robert’s wife Betty. A Chicago girl who works in a medical library, Betty first falls in love with Foxx’s music, then the man, a cycle that only continues. Hers is a less hazy, hallucinogenic narrative, but is nonetheless pregnant with emotion, revealing Foxx as a real man—one that “[s]ometimes when he smiled…looked cruel,” but “[w]hen he laughed…never looked cruel.” Through Betty Greenman draws out not only the shiny portrait of a funk star but the more important B-side—the woman who loves him and who unbeknown to Foxx, keeps him grounded and sane.
All the characters soar against a familiar backdrop—a young star’s rise, the inevitable hard times, the comeback, drugs and overdoses, relationships sacrificed on fame’s altar—and the well-known ‘60s and ‘70s era. But Greenman both acknowledges this and makes his portrait new, never explaining or translating, say, why Foxx’s decision to skip Woodstock mattered, why “August had a little light in it, mainly on account of King’s dream,” or just when “Dallas was a black spot on the map.”
Greenman juggles this larger-than-life plot and protagonist with remarkable finesse—each character is sharply drawn, each place immediately conjured in the imagination. The narrative pulses with life and natural beat, never a stray word or scene, instantly drawing you into its current and never settling down until the very last sentence. “Please Step Back” finishes like the closing of a beautiful song, one that can be turned over and listened to again—until Greenman releases his next big hit.
30 percent off and free shipping isn't a bad way to start the summer. That's what UH Press is offering from June 1-8--ranging from a $7-$23 discount on over 1,300 new and backlist titles, along with four easy ways to order. The only catch is books ship via USPS Media Mail.
A few noteworthy titles that should be on your shelves:
-Who Owns the Crown Lands of Hawai‘i? by John Van Dyke: an up-close investigation of "ceded" lands. --Read my review here
-Dying in a Strange Land, a novel by Milton Murayama: the close of the Oyama family saga.
-Vaka Moana: Voyages of the Ancestors edited by K. R. Howe: a five-pound compilation of scholarly but accessible essays on the epic history of Pacific settlement. --Read my review here
-Ha'ena: Through the Eyes of the Ancestors by Carlos Andrade: a chronicle of changes to Native Hawaiian life, using Ha'ena, Kaua'i as the cynosure. --Read my review here
-Atlas of Hawai‘i, Third Edition: a classic
-Pukui and Elbert’s Hawaiian Dictionary: another must-have classic
Place your orders here:
● online at: www.uhpress.hawaii.edu
● by email: uhpbooks@hawaii.edu
● by phone: 956-8255 or toll free: 1-888-UHPRESS (847-7377)
● by fax: 988-6052 or toll free: 1-800-650-7811
Memory in Motion
She could not be escaped
that day, soon to be joined
in her bed of earth and ash,
there, perched above
as we walked, or rode, encircled
by the carriage’s hooved melody.
There was no gauzy mist
for her, as there is today,
no clouds, even, pinned to the spring sky.
Only dogwood blooms, like tiny moons
showering scattered light
across shadowed squares of grass.
Her smile, the subtle appetizer
of a throaty, coarse laugh—
long gone. Only the tremble
of fingers, hers now mine,
as we walked on.
And when we sat to look upon
that gold box carried
in a soldier’s steady grip,
Hers reached out—
holding what once was
her husband, my friend:
that small container,
confining the uncontainable,
so solid, so frail, as collapsible
as air—
knotted hands that
shined like opals each time
she smoothed the hair
from her face,
reading, chin tucked, brow
crumpled and worn; eyes
like stones shimmering
at a shallow stream bed,
mossy green casting
greys and browns into the inexorable
water tumbling by.
And now him.
Yes, her step, also, was like mine;
the curve of my jaw, like his.
Parts of me, alone together,
twin blood feeding my bones;
a memory in motion, desire
freed and captured. Dreamed,
then buried.
Until it’s time,
and I traverse the currents
of headstones,
cold white lines
pointing toward home.
- © Christine Thomas
This month a new book presents a wealth of perspectives on this issue via the oral testimony of more than 150 ordinary people central to Kamehameha Schools. Wayfinding through the Storm: Speaking Truth to Power at Kamehameha Schools 1993-1999, edited by Gavan Daws at Na Leo O Kamehameha, makes use of court testimony and interview transcripts of faculty, staff, students, administrators, alumni, parents, lawyers and more, while preserving each person's voice and message. Historic photographs, video stills, cartoons, memos, petitions, letters Etc. offer a visual accompaniment to anchor the narratives in the making of history.
If the book attacks one person most, it is Lokelani Lyndsey, and does so even with her own words (other trustees statements are also included, so they in effect speak for themselves). All the comments and complaints are multidimensional, however--not just moral, but speaking to the physical and emotional effects of the trustees' contentious decisions and actions on the people who cared and worked for the school and its 'ohana.
It seems only good can come from continuing to open up the issue to more people and voices, and perhaps in the future others will step forward to present even more of the extremely nuanced sides of this complicated time in history.
Wayfinding through the Storm Book Signings and Readings/Discussions
When: Friday, May 22, 5PM - 5:30PM — Program, 5:30PM - 7PM — Book Sale & Signing
What: Book Launch Celebration
Where: Kamehameha Schools, Kawaiahao Plaza, 567 S. King St.,
Kaiona Room (Hale Makai, 1st floor near Courtyard)
When: Saturday, May 30, 1PM - 2PM
What: Book Signing with Nā Leo O Kamehameha
Where: Barnes & Noble, Kahala Mall (808) 737-3323
When: Saturday, June 6, 1PM - 2PM
What: Book Signing with Nā Leo O Kamehameha
Where: Barnes & Noble, Ala Moana (808) 949-7307
When: Saturday, June 13, 2PM - 3PM
What: Book Signing with Nā Leo O Kamehameha
Where: Borders, Ward Centre (808) 591-8995
When: Sunday, June 14, 2PM - 3PM
What: “Talk Story” and Book Signing with Nā Leo O Kamehameha
Where: Native Books / Nā Mea Hawai‘i, Ward Warehouse, (808) 597-8967
Read Ragnar Carlson's article about the Wayfinding through the Storm in the Honolulu Weekly.
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