Author Interview: Jeannette Walls

Looking Inside Herself to Discover a "True-Life" Story

My interview with author Jeannette Walls

Journalists are never the story. They look instead to the world at large, interviewing, researching and seeking objective truth. Jeannette Walls knows this approach well, having worked for twenty years as a journalist in New York City—including a stint as a gossip columnist—before her first nonfiction book, “The Glass Castle,” was released in 2005.

This disarmingly candid memoir quickly became a national bestseller, resurrecting Walls’ peripatetic, peculiar upbringing, her artistic but unconventional mother Rose Mary and creative and savvy but alcoholic father Rex. But in that book, for the first time Walls was very much the story.

Her husband, writer John Taylor, urged her to write “The Glass Castle,” but it was readers who spurred Walls’ newest book, “Half Broke Horses,” unwittingly catalyzing her storytelling ‘s next evolution. This “true-life” narrative is part oral history and part invention, reconstructing her grandmother Lily’s early 20th century Texas ranch life and delivering Walls into the realm of fiction.

“I’m not trying to create a new genre—the book just doesn’t fit into any existing ones,” Walls insists. “Even though it’s just a family story and an oral history, I don’t know if it’s true.”

Lily died when Walls was a child, so she originally intended to write about her mother, Rose Mary, about whose life readers are always curious. “They always ask why someone with my mother’s education would live on the streets the way she did. And when I tell them about her childhood, their faces light up,” Walls said.

But when she attempted writing in her mother’s voice, it just didn’t work. That’s when Rose Mary, who now lives with Walls and her husband in Virginia, urged her to center “Half Broke Horses” on Lily. Walls eventually realized it was the more compelling story.

“I resisted that at first, because I couldn’t interview Lily, but Mom had so many stories so I researched or filled in gaps, and gave it a shot. I wrote it in first person because it was easier to capture her voice.”

And indeed Lily’s voice jumps off the page, that of a tough, no-nonsense pioneer woman who bucks gender role expectations and sees lessons in every event, whether breaking horses, riding 500 miles alone on her pony to arrive at her first school teaching job, being scammed by her first husband, or fired for not adhering to the politically acceptable curriculum.

Today, Walls describes herself as a “what you see is what you get” kind of person, and it’s easy to see the roots of her character in her grandmother’s in depth portrait. She also admits that writing family histories has been a way to see herself, and her kin, more clearly, this time by interviewing her mother daily, hearing startling stories and learning firsthand about Lily’s and Rose Mary’s life philosophies.

“It’s sort of a self-therapy—you’re examining your past yourself,” she said. “The process brought into focus not only Lily’s life but my mother’s. It’s therapeutic and enlightening to look at the patterns that emerge.”

With two books under her wing—the second written in half the time—Walls is on the road promoting “Half Broke Horses,” practicing her new hobby, piano playing, and waiting for the next interesting subject to appear—and not necessarily nonfiction.

“I’ve always thought of myself as a nonfiction writer, but I’m starting to understand for the first time how closely related fiction and nonfiction can be,” Walls said. Her next topic? “I just don’t know. I’m just waiting for readers to suggest one.”

For now, she hopes “Half Broke Horses” will inspire people to look closely at their own histories. “We’re all stronger and more resilient than we realize,” Walls said. “We all come from hardy stock, and if you think about your ancestry you’ll see what you come from. Look inside yourself and find that."

--By CHRISTINE THOMAS

Originally published 11.07.09 in the Miami Herald.

Book Review: Half Broke Horses

"Grandma lived on a ranch and embraced life: This fictional memoir pays tribute to Lily Casey, a spunky woman born in 1901."

Half Broke Horses: A True-Life Novel. Jeannette Walls. Scribner. 270 pages. $25.

Most children resist learning their parents’ lessons, making adulthood at time to ascertain where it all went wrong—or right. Jeannette Walls first mined personal history for answers in her bestselling debut memoir “The Glass Castle,” and continues to excavate her unusual family mores in her new true-life novel “Half Broke Horses.”

This humorous categorization could be seen as a dig at authors who fictionalize aspects of memoirs yet still call them nonfiction, but is overall a smart disclosure that Walls has filled in gaps and invented dialogue throughout this homage to her spunky maternal grandmother Lily Casey. Lily’s distinct, first person narrative voice brings immediacy to Walls’ inclusion of seemingly every moment and memory from 1901, Lily’s birth year, to the year Walls was born, which also positions the novel as a prequel to “The Glass Castle.”

Lily’s early life takes place on a ranch in Salt Draw, Texas, where her father trained carriage horses but couldn’t ride them, having been kicked in the head by one at age three. His lovable idiosyncrasies, like perpetually campaigning for phonetic spelling, energize these parts, while Lily’s mother, who thought work better left to men and with whom Lily doesn’t identify, fades like a wallflower. Lily compensates for her father’s physical handicap, working so hard on the ranch that a brief boarding school stint feels like a vacation, and keeps her eyes on the future. One of the first lessons she learns from her father is that “no matter how much he hated or feared the future, it was coming and there was only one way to deal with it: by climbing aboard.”

Such practical ambition is arguably Lily’s defining characteristic, and Walls sketches her only in positive light, emphasizing Lily’s resourcefulness, work ethic, and independence. She’s presented as rough around the edges and proud of it, a free-spirited model of self-sufficiency and women’s liberation who is at the same time dedicated to finishing her college degree, and buckles down during hard times to support both her dreams and her family. She anchors a sprawling story that unfolds along the undulating backbone of early American life, through two wars, prohibition, suffrage, the Great Depression, the rise of the automobile, the airplane—complete with canvas cockpits—and city life.

Walls avoids the interior lives of the men in Lily’s life, her husband a supporting cast member and her son a mere extra. The novel is really about women—from Lily’s tragic sister Helen, who dreamed of becoming an actress, to Walls’ mother Rosemary, a firecracker Lily lovingly describes as “a little like a half-broke horse.” The portrait Walls seems most charmed by is that of tough, headstrong women who make their own luck with whatever they possess, learning from mistakes along the way.

Throughout life Lily sees every event as a lesson, and works hard to impart that perspective to Rosemary. “I tried to make her see that everything in life…was a lesson, but it was up to her to figure out what she’d learned,” Lily says; but in this case, Walls is the one figuring them out, just as we are each left to make sense of how those who came before shape who we are now.

--Reviewed by CHRISTINE THOMAS

Originally published in the Miami Herald, 11.3.09

Here We Go Again

It's November, and you know what that means.

For some it may be a month of preparing to eat a large meal centered on an unfortunate targeted bird, but for the rest of us it's National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo).

You may recall that during the Great MacBook Meltdown of mid November '08, I lost 30,000 words written for NaNoWriMo. Well, I have mourned them long enough, and will reattempt the same book this year--50,000 words by November 31.

It's on--and I'm already a day behind. But, I like being an underdog.

Books Over Miami

After interviewing bestselling women's fiction author Darien Hsu Gee, who writes books like her most recent Table Manners under the name Mia King, I'm now getting ready to interview Jeannette Walls. She's the bestselling author of the memoir The Glass Castle, which I liked so much I gave it to a friend of mine to read while traveling in South America and now am sad it's no longer on my shelves, and of the new "true-life" novel about the life of her maternal grandmother at the turn of the century, Half Broke Horses.

Walls will be appearing at the star-studded Miami Book Fair November 8-15, along with a slew of top authors including Margaret Atwood, Barbara Kingsolver, and the recently deposed Gourmet editor and author Ruth Reichl. Although I won't be there in person, my interview for the Miami Herald will have me there in spirit.

Book Review: Ho'okupu: An Offering of Literature

Ho'okupu: An Offering of Literature by Native Hawaiian Women
Edited by Miyoko Sugano and Jackie Pualani Johnson
Mutual Publishing; 130 pages; $12.95

Since ancient times, offerings have come in many forms, from gold, cattle and prayer to, as Tamara Laulani Wong-Morrison writes in “Proper Offerings to Pele”: “'ohelo berries / Red bulbs complete with an offering chant.” Wong-Morrison’s poem is just one offering presented in “Ho'okupu: An Offering of Literature by Native Hawaiian Women,” a new anthology of contemporary works by eighteen Hawaiian women.

Editors Miyoko Sugano and Jackie Pualani Johnson, both UH Hilo professors, situate the anthology within a formal framework of ceremony and protocol. Before the first contribution, “Ka Waiho A Ka Mana'o” by Haunani Bernardino, readers are confronted by acknowledgments, a foreword, opening mele, lengthy greeting wherein the editors justify the use of English language, and a separate editors’ “mahalo.” Tacked on at the end is a substantial appendix including a second table of contents, biographies, a glossary, closing mele, and writer interviews conducted by the editors’ students. While well intentioned, these bookends end up creating an impression of extraneous filler, detracting from the “meat” of the offering.

The writers in the collection vary in age and background, live on O'ahu, Moloka'i, Hawai'i and the mainland, and range from Pualani Kanaka'ole, who is from a long line of chanters and hula performers, to Cheryl Bautista, a recent college graduate who works for a general contractor. Intersecting themes such as taro farming, voyaging, 'ohana, paddling, death, and even genetic engineering seep through equally varied mediums of verse, haiku, play, short story, chant and talk story.

When it does get going, the collection happily opens with Phyllis Coochie Cayan’s and Kanani Aton’s haiku, both evoking the ghost of deceased local poet Wayne Kaumuali'i Westlake and standing alone refreshingly enjoyable bites of imagery. One example is “Hana i ka lo'i,” where Aton writes with playful precision: “Cool pebbles of rain / Fall laughing on taro leaves / Wish I knew the joke.” Later, in J.W. Makanui’s longer, four-stanza poem “For Grampa and Gramma and Summers, with Love,” the refrain “Makaweli red dirt” is smartly repeated throughout to provide momentum and increase a powerful building of memory and emotion.

The most unique contributions can’t help but stand out from the crowd. Doodie Cruz’s one-act play “Whose Nose Dat?” is an energizing change of form and a tender yet tough depiction of tradition carried on in a new and changing Hawaiian family. Victoria Nalani Kneubuhl’s courageous and engrossing short story “Ho'oulu Lahui” provocatively conjures Hawai'i in 2021, when a newly formed “Ministry of Hawaiian Culture” carries out a noble but misguided mission of water and land conservation and re-population under the slogan “Increase the Race.” And Eleanor K. S. Ahuna’s “Mama” presents her mother’s talk story, encompassing such captivating memories as teaching hula in Keaukaha and cooking on a tin can stove, and told in disarming everyday language.

While primarily looking to the past, evoking ancient knowledge and tradition, this earnest collection showcases not only the diversity of Hawaiian women, their concerns and daily lives, but offers an intriguing mix of meditations on emotion and politics, nature and family, and both the real and the imagined.

--Reviewed by CHRISTINE THOMAS
Published October 11, 2009 in the Honolulu Advertiser

Book Review: That Bird Has My Wings

That Bird Has My Wings: The Autobiography of an Innocent Man on Death Row

By Jarvis Jay Masters
(HarperOne; 304 pages; $24.99)

If it's too easy to make fearful snap judgments about criminals, it takes steely courage to look unflinchingly at the whole person behind the crime, the good and the bad - the kind of bravery that Jarvis Jay Masters exhibits in "That Bird Has My Wings: The Autobiography of an Innocent Man on Death Row." A like courage will be required of readers, who face an arduous, abuse-filled journey, but also a story buoyed by tremendous heart.

In his second book, Masters delivers a simple but painstakingly detailed account of the complicated tangle of experiences, influences and choices that brought him to serve an armed-robbery sentence at San Quentin. Four years later in 1985, Masters was convicted of conspiracy to commit murder in the death of a San Quentin prison guard, based on testimony now proved false; he spent 17 years in solitary confinement, which ended in 2007.

Yet, rather than structuring his book as a case for his innocence, little about his Death Row charge is included; Masters focuses on a candid examination of his early past and offers a few insightful reflections on his present life - an attempt, he says, to offer others inspiration to make different, better choices, and a restraint perhaps born from the dedicated Buddhist meditation practice Masters began in prison.

His story begins in the late '60s, when Masters was a young child and his mother and stepfather were heroin users and dealers in Long Beach. Masters and his sisters were regularly abandoned for days and weeks at a time, often with nothing to eat but what a concerned neighbor left out once a day. Social services eventually intervened, sending Jarvis and his siblings to different foster homes. He is fully aware of the irony that "[e]ighteen years later, this very same judicial system was now ordering [his] execution."

Institutions frame many of the harrowing events in Masters' life. After what is at first a welcome rescue from neglect and deliverance into a loving foster home, Masters is soon abandoned by the social welfare system. Forced to move to a new home where "acts of violence were random" and he and the other foster children "rated our own toughness according to the violence that we endured," Masters soon runs away, living on the street until ending up in McLaren Hall - the first in a series of runaway stints and boys-home placements.

Of these, his experiences at the Valley Boys Academy, a military-type reform school that Masters calls a "gladiator school," are the most horrifying. Placed there with other 11- and 12-year-olds, he once again works hard to succeed and assimilate; but at the academy the price of acceptance is such abuse as cigarette burns, ritualized beatings and being trained to be a counselor's fighter.

Masters says the counselor "purposely unleashed my rage" and "reached deep inside me to find viciousness and bring it out," at the tender age of 11. Masters' perpetual struggle to discover an independent identity and adapt to dysfunctional environments - succeeding, then slipping back into destructive behavior - is also one of the book's most heartbreaking themes. When he begins experimenting with drugs at one home, it's because drugs make him equal to the other boys. When he begins to break rules, it's a way to be in control.

Yet Masters' narrative isn't one of self-pity. He makes a point not to reserve judgment, to instead record events and emotions, then let them pass like thoughts in the mind during meditation. He expresses gratitude for the positive people and moments in his life, then recognizes and releases the abuse. This ability to forgive, to rise above rage, blame and judgment to a place of love, is remarkable. And the compassionate act of self-discovery captured in "That Bird Has My Wings" is one that, as he hoped, will reach well beyond the confines of one cell, one act, or one person - and inspire many.

--Reviewed by CHRISTINE THOMAS
Originally published 10/2/09 in the San Francisco Chronicle

Book Review: Waikiki Lullaby

Having begun reading at around age three, I hold firm that it's never too early to begin reading to children. "Waikiki Lullaby," a new board book by Beth Greenway Skinner, one-time Hawai'i resident, resonates with this belief and presents adults and children with a soothing bedtime story centered on Hawaiian-style activities.

One memorable verse is the lovely "Hear Uncle play his steel guitar, hear ocean breezes sigh," even though ukulele or even slack key guitar would have been more accurate. In other pages, hula girls put down their "feather dancing gourd(s)" and surfers their boards, and soon enter a gentle night of dreams. Throughout, Alexis America's night sky-hued illustrations evoke the nostalgia of Matson tourism posters and classic images of one of my favorite books, Cooper Edens' "If You're Afraid of the Dark, Remember the Night Rainbow."

There seem to be a lot of locally-aimed children's books popping out on local bookstore shelves, but this one, put out by newcomer Beach House Publishing, is the real thing.

Book Review: The Music Room, A Memoir by William Fiennes

The Music Room: A Memoir

---

By William Fiennes

(W.W. Norton; 216 pages; $24.95)

The extraordinary backdrop of author William Fiennes' childhood was staged nearly 700 years before his birth, in 14th century England, when a moated castle began to be passed down through his father's ancestors. While his parents confronted practical and financial ownership concerns, young William, a distant cousin of actors Ralph and Joseph Fiennes, had only to enjoy his enchanting fortress abode - the cynosure of his inspired second memoir.

At first glance, "The Music Room" is an ingenuous ode to Fiennes' childhood. Because his parents viewed themselves as stewards of a historic site that should be shared with the world, they financed its upkeep by renting it out for community events, tours and uses such as shared garden plots. That meant Fiennes was often surrounded by a "parade of strangers," and he regularly tagged along, beginning to "absorb the facts and stories of each room," delighting that "Private: No Entry" signs didn't apply to him.

His playground was the moat; he watched Shakespeare performed by theater groups in his backyard; he helped his mother water the rush matting in the King's Chamber and he challenged himself to enter the scariest rooms. He let his imagination loose.

Yet Fiennes quickly pokes holes in this idyllic depiction by letting in its darker side; those fantasy years were haunted not by ancestors past but by the live ghost of his 11-year elder brother Richard, who suffered short-term memory loss, deteriorating mental capacity and other acute behavioral and cognitive effects due to frontal lobe brain damage from severe epilepsy. At that time, Richard and William were mental contemporaries, but whereas Fiennes knew his "childhood was a temporary predicament," Richard's was a different story. "His childlikeness was indefinite," Fiennes writes. Like the castle itself, "he was moated in."

Anecdotes revealing Richard's frightening behavior punctuate and interrupt Fiennes' otherwise dreamy and swirling narrative, just as the outbursts once disrupted family life. And in turn, Fiennes' poetic prose is balanced by excerpts of scientific writings on the history of the brain and mind, which helped him understand that Richard's lovable idiosyncrasies, such as his obsessive support of the Leeds football team, and times when "the threat of violence sharpened the air," were all beyond Richard's control.

As the narrative slowly advances, a seemingly limitless storehouse of lucid memories unfurl. Some loop in a rhythmic refrain of recurring daily events, such as "showing groups of students and tourists round the house, or arranging flowers in the Great Hall and Oak Room vases, or rubbing oil and wax into books, floorboard and armour." In other instances, Fiennes grinds time to a near-halt, expertly bringing microscopic detail into focus: "enormous spiders roamed the pipework, emerging at night to spread themselves like starfish in the baths." And often right in the midst of recollections, he moves seamlessly in and out of past and present tense, bringing readers directly into the past as if it were taking place today.

Early on, Fiennes plants a clever and apt metaphor for his creative narrative structure via his youthful fascination with his mother's metronome, housed in the castle's music room:

"Suddenly it seemed the time you set by the metronome was actual time, and that your life passed more slowly or quickly as you slid the weight up and down the scale, the music room a world that turned at whatever speed you judged appropriate. ... The day's pitch and time-keeping were in my hands."

Fiennes writes that in his youth he never questioned "the world as I found it." He also admits, "I didn't question my brother's seizures or the frightening and unpredictable swings of his mood from gentleness and warmth to opposition and violence - these too were just facts I grew up among, how things were."

But here he resurrects, probes and preserves that time and place, finally meditating on how what one inherits - in his case, the castle and Richard's illness - can define us, forever shaping our minds.

--Reviewed by Christine Thomas
Published in the San Francisco Chronicle, 9/16/09

Interview: Dishing the Dirt with Dean Okimoto

Sure, Roy Yamaguchi may have launched his Nalo Greens, Nalo Farms owner Dean Okimoto has since made his own name across the state, with a passion for local agriculture rooted in his genes, and a determination to lead—even if it makes him grouchy—his signature ingredient.

I talked to Dean for Modern Luxury Hawai'i Magazine's summer food issue, but didn't have space to print our entire interview, where Dean talks about his love for haricot vert, gets passionate about taro and GMO, and explains why we have to start making some noise.

Now you can read it all, below.

Q. When you’re not farming, how do you kick back and relax?

A. That’s rare, except in the evening. I like to go to the movies, to Side Street and have a drink and pupus. I run on my treadmill in my spare time, four days a week. Sundays I go golf in the morning, and then if we don’t go to the movies I’ll cook.

I love to barbecue at friends’ houses. I enjoy cooking too, especially doing marinades.

Q. What do you cook at home?

A. My dad made this recipe a long time ago that is my favorite chicken dish, with a sherry herb marinade and then barbecued. On Sundays we have tomatoes that are overripe so I’ll take ten pounds of tomatoes, some fresh herbs, get maui onions and bell peppers, and I make a fresh marinara sauce, and cook it for 3-4 hours.

Q. How do you use your greens at home?

A. Probably one of my favorite salads is our greens with fresh mango, cut up with a bit of Old Amsterdam cheese or, if I can get it, Big Island goat cheese, with a Maui onion vinaigrette that I make. And tomatoes, of course.

Q. Is there anything you wish you could grow, in an ideal world?

A. What I’d really like to grow if I could make money at it is French haricot vert. We just can’t grow it at the prices you can get it from South America. I still may try again. I’ve grown it before, but the bugs love it and it’s really hard to pick it and make it profitable, because sometimes it takes about 20 minutes to pick a pound, and three pounds an hour doesn’t make a business.

Q. You’re always interested in nutrition, and do a lot of research on what’s current, so what’s hot right now?

A. One thing we’ve been grappling with are food safety issues, especially with our new president getting concerned about peanut allergies and things. We invested in putting up a processing facility and just started using it—it’s very costly but now we can deliver a product to our customer that’s food safety certified. There are a lot of protocols to that guarantee, and to make sure that rat lung illness on the Big Island can’t happen to us. There’s also very little chance of salmonella or e-coli.

Going forward it’s becoming more of a concern to the hotels and general public. We’re investing in that to be sure that if people are going to eat Nalo greens or anything from our farm, it’s going to be safe—you’re not going to get sick.

I think root vegetables are becoming more of a demand and we’re not growing enough of them here. We’re going to try soon to expand that and grow more root vegetables, like baby beets and even looking at different radishes. I do wish we could grow parsnips but it’s too hot, at least where we are.

Q. Farming is about adapting—any advice for us during these changing and tough economic times?

A. Farmers are a different breed because they have a hard time giving up and when they do give up they don’t tell anybody—they just disappear. That’s the sad part. I think you have to make noise. We’re at a point that too many people have become so disconnected with agriculture—they don’t understand it, and there’s so much misinformation out there. The people that say they support agriculture actually go against policies that would help it survive.

There has to be more outreach to the community so they understand what we’re trying to do and what it takes to get that vegetable to your plate. If we do that we’ll get more understanding and in the long run agriculture will be more viable.

Q. Is being that voice for local agriculture your main focus now?

Yes. The taro industry is my best example right now. Kahea has put out a hit list saying we’re telling people to thing about choices, and don’t support corporate taro farmers. They name two taro farmers--the two guys who produce 80 percent of our poi—Hanalei Poi and Honolulu Poi.

These are both 4^th generation farmers, and now they’re getting calls from the mainland and from the islands, and the intonation of the whole message is that they are using GMO taro, but there is no GMO taro. It’s affecting their business and if they go under you’ll have 80 percent less poi out there. It’s just so blatantly unfair. Who’s going to be eating poi in the future if you put these companies out of business? I don’t know what their agenda is really. It’s such a selfish way of thinking and that’s not the Hawaiian way that I grew up with.

Q. Your childhood nickname was habutz, but do you have a new nickname now that you’re happy in farming?

A. Oh heck. No I don’t have a nickname anymore. It’s funny because that’s the one everyone remembers, but I was also called the farmer in high school, because my dad was a farmer, and in college they called me Mokey Bear because I had hair down to the middle of my back so they thought I was a moke!

--Q&A with Christine Thomas, edited version published in Modern Luxury Hawai'i, Summer 2009

Book Review: Easy on the Eyes by Jane Porter

Easy on the EyeS
By Jane Porter
5 Spot; 335 pages; $13.99

Getting older can be tough, especially if you’re the lovely Tiana Tomlinson, host of an Entertainment Tonight-style television show and the narrator of part-time Hawai'i resident Jane Porter’s latest novel, “Easy on the Eyes.”

The novel catapults into action when, at a mere 38 years old, Tiana’s boss begins hinting about her need for plastic surgery and for “young blood” to invigorate her falling ratings. Translation: she’s looking old and they’re going to phase her out if she doesn’t do something quick.

As the seeming inevitability of plastic surgery begins to haunt Tiana, first at work and then in life via the sexy but shallow plastic surgeon Michael O’Sullivan, Porter cleverly uses the topic as both the problem and the solution to moving the novel and Tiana’s life forward for the better—but in a commendably unexpected and believable way. But first Tiana must realize she has been asleep at the wheel of her own life, allowing her focus go on automatic pilot, her lonely love life to be full of meaningless flings to prevent emotional pain, while she stuffs real emotion and vows to “only ever show the world my happy face.”

At once oddly hyper self-aware, yet neurotic and traumatized, Tiana’s grip on her outwardly perfect life begins to loosen, and Porter smartly depicts Tiana confronting issues and questions many women have as they age. Apart from yearning for fulfillment in work and love, however, Tiana’s central query is both a life and career dilemma: “Would I be a different person with a different [physical] image? And who would I become if I did allow myself to age?”

Compounding these struggles is her cloying grief stemming from the death of her reporter husband. But here’s the hitch—at various points, the novel asserts both that his death occurred one year and seven years earlier. Thus Porter’s novel juggles two very different Tianas—one just a year widowed and raw with grief, and one stunted for the past seven years, living as if she can never love again. This glaring error of authorial confusion makes it tough to believe and reconcile all of Tiana’s reactions, motivations, and decisions, as well as resulting plot development.

But as Tiana slowly unearths her secrets, emotions, and vulnerability to save herself and her career, her confession-like, first person narration brings intimacy and reality to the novel, even though at times Porter fails to edit Tiana’s repetitive inner dialogue. The genre-perfect side plot of Tiana’s budding romance with a heart-stoppingly charming bad boy/good boy love interest also successfully motors the plot, but beyond romance and the glamour of Hollywood and celebrities, Porter ensures that “Easy on the Eyes” is fortified with a stimulating intellectual and emotional message, strong conscience and pure heart.

--Reviewed by Christine Thomas for the Honolulu Advertiser, 9/13/09

Interview: Daniel Dae Kim and D.K. Kodama's Close EnCounter

An actor teaming up with a restaurateur is a common, almost cliche scenario these days, but when LOST star Daniel Dae Kim first connected with Hawai'i chef D.K. Kodama, it wasn’t in the kitchen but at their children’s school.

After cementing a friendship there and on the golf course, together with two other investors Daniel and D.K. opened Hawai'i’s first The Counter burger franchise in Kahala on Feburary 16, 2009--a way for Daniel to put down roots in the community he now calls home, and for both fathers to create a family-friendly place to grab a good meal or pau hana drink.

Sitting in The Counter’s modern-industrial, light-filled dining room just before opening, Daniel and D.K. sat down to talk food, kim chee, and the future, while I moderated and occasionally fed them a few questions of my own.

A very short excerpt of the interview appeared in the most recent Modern Luxury Hawai'i magazine, but I thought the entire, often funny, interview should also see the light of day here.

Daniel: What do you like to eat when you just want comfort food?

DK: You know the thing about me is that I never have one single favorite—I have a lot of favorites. That’s why I like living in Hawai`i—the variety. If you want Chinese, Korean, Japanese, American—whatever kind of food you’re into, that’s what you can eat. It’s the same thing with drinking—I don’t have one favorite drink. If it’s hot I’ll drink one thing, if it’s cold another.

DANIEL: Do your restaurants reflect your taste in food?

DK: They do, actually. Sansei does because we don’t just have Japanese food, we have things that I like, and everything has to be a Wow flavor. Everything. The reason I got in the restaurant business is the instant gratification: you serve people food, they take a bite, they smile and say: Wow! This is great. It’s one of the few pleasures we can show in public.

DANIEL: Where does The Counter fit in?

DK: The reason I love The Counter is the quality, and also the value. We’ve talked about this before—our families can come here and have a great time, make all the noise they want, eat messily, and it’s comfort food for them, especially in these times and this economy.

DANIEL: How did you modify this Counter location to make it more appropriate for the community here?

DK: We put on a loco moco, and added rice to the menu—of course we had to get corporate approval, but rice is a staple here in Hawai'i so we had to do that, and loco moco is a natural. Hawai'i’s master sommelier, Chuck Furuya, looked at the wine list and recommended at least 6 to 8 wines, and when Chuck picks wine it has good quality and good value. And of course, not because of you Daniel, but kim chee is another staple here in Hawai'i, so that’s another natural addition. Or maybe it is because of you?

DANIEL: No, I hate kim chee. No, that’s not true! Actually you know what’s really great with kim chee is spaghetti. Have you ever had pasta with marinara sauce and kim chee? It’s one of my favorite things.

DK: We’ve got some in the fridge. I’ve gotta get it.

DANIEL: Your mother has influenced a lot of your restaurants in the past. Is she a guiding force in your life?

DK: No question. That’s why I like variety. Sitting at that dinner table with my four brothers and my sister, you know she wouldn’t always cook Japanese every meal. She loved to experiment. That’s why my palate says, Hey, if it’s good, eat it.

DANIEL: When The Counter has its one-year anniversary, how are we going to celebrate?

DK: You know, I think we should buy a couple of Harleys.

DANIEL: We’ll have to see what my wife says about that.

DK: Yeah, mine too!

--Christine Thomas (edited version published in Modern Luxury Hawai'i, Summer '09)

Interview: Bev Gannon is Cooking on the Edge

You’ve got to be quick to keep up with Hawai`i regional cuisine co-founder Chef Beverly Gannon. Though she’s Maui-based and still running the now 20-year-old Hali'imaile General Store and Joe’s in Wailea, Gannon’s always looking ahead, whether expanding upgradeable meal service as Hawaiian Airlines’ executive consulting chef, overseeing the Lana`i City Grille menu, eating differently and yes, opening another Maui restaurant. Because if Gannon’s not challenged, she’s just not herself. I interviewed Gannon again for Modern Luxury Hawai'i's summer issue, but cut it down substantially for space. So I decided to include our entire interview here for those who want a more in-depth look at the woman and the chef--from politics to back stage parties to eating at home.

Q. 2008 was a big year, for the country and Hali`imaile, which turned 20. Did the presidential election make your year brighter or do you keep politics out of your kitchen?

A. I pretty much keep politics at an arms length. I’m very happy for the change because I think we needed change. You know, it took my business a while to get settled in and get it the way I wanted it to be, and I’ve yet to have a business from the get go out of the box be perfect and work correctly. You take three steps forward and three steps back and get a momentum going. You get a level of excellence and then maintain that. I’m hopeful that’s how our political system will be working. But in the business I’m in, I pretty much keep my political opinions to myself.

I did make a stand on one thing—on how Maui County was handling the bed and breakfast problem here. I think any time you take a huge amount of money out of the economy without really having a good reason, I don’t agree with that. What was coupled with that was the economy went down, so we tell people don’t come we don’t want you here and then the economy tanked and people are losing jobs right and left. I think that could have been handled differently, and that was the first time I came out publicly on an issue. And one guy was irate, but most people gave me pats on the back for standing up for something I could really believe in. You need to have a solution to a problem, have it all ironed out and then change it—you don’t stop it before you have an answer.

Q. After 10 years in November as consulting executive chef Hawaiian airlines, where do you think the airline and travel industry is headed?

A. Quite honestly, and this isn’t because I work for them, but Hawaiian airlines and other airlines are trying to make money. I don’t know if I would want to be in that business, where A + B does not equal C, but negative C or something. I think there will always be airlines and we’ll be able to fly, but unfortunately we’ve all gotten used to inexpensive fares to get places. When I was younger it was expensive to fly. The airfares 30 or 40 years ago were more expensive than it now.

Hawaiian is on its way to expanding, but what people don’t understand is, take inter-island fares—in order for them to break even they have to have every seat filled, and when you look at that there’s no other way to make money. If you were in any other business you’d ask why am I doing this, perpetually losing money? So that’s why you have to buy amenities now. If they were all raking in a big profit we could complain, but that’s not the case.

Q. So how did you feel about the cut backs in food service?

A. Now hold on—Hawaiian airlines has not cut back on food service. First class meals are still first class and they’re great. In economy you still get a hot meal or sandwich package for no cost. Hawaiian is hoping that they will always be able to provide that service. What they are doing is expanding on that so you’ll have a choice of a free hot meal or sandwich but also be able to upgrade the meal to buy sushi, bentos, or Caesar salad with chicken and more—so you will be given something free but can also upgrade.

We’re bucking the trend. There are very few airlines out there you can get on an eight-hour flight now in economy and don’t have to buy the meal. If you fly from Dallas to Honolulu you have to buy a sandwich on board and bring your own food. I’m of the thought that whether a hotel or car rental give me one price and tell me what it is and put the hidden things in it.

Q. You never planned on being a chef, right?

A. I worked in the entertainment business in early ‘70s and my lifelong dream was not to be a chef. It was definitely not in my world of what I was going to be when I grew up. I wasn’t sure, I didn’t know, but there were a lot of signs that pointed to me being in the business I am now

When my parents entertained I was the only kid who hung out in the kitchen with the caterer. When I traveled, especially in Europe, I found myself in the food shops and farmer’s markets and was open to tasting all kinds of food. My mother was a simple cook; we didn’t have a lot of fancy foods. But when I worked for entertainers all of a sudden the world of food opened up and we were eating best foods and drinking the best wine and I liked it.

Did I think this would be my career path, no. But 25 years later it’s what I do. I’ve always approached my business as what do the customers want, not what I want. Whatever the customer wants I’m going to figure out ways to give it to them, even if it may not be the way I would do it.

Q. You have a reputation as a great party hostess—how did that develop?

A. I always gave the parties. I started in high school because I grew up in a house that was a great entertaining house and my parents entertained a lot. My parents said they’d rather have me home than out on the road, my Dad especially was worried we’d get hurt. He raised three chickens because we were afraid of being hurt.

In summer, everyone hung out at my house around the pool. When I was 19 I would have a sit-down dinner party for 14 people just because it was something fun to do. I used to throw New Year’s Eve parties for 300 people, and Halloween parties—I just liked throwing parties. And my parents loved it because I wasn’t out on New Year’s or Halloween—I was home.

Q. What did you study in college?

A. I studied a lot of different things. The thing I really zeroed in on toward the end was criminology and sociology, which has been a really big help in the restaurant business, in some of the situations you get into. Sociology was really helpful with customers, and criminology in part with other situations. Like when you realize you told everyone they could have time off to vote in the election but most of them couldn’t because they’d been in jail at one point in the past.

Q. You were a road manager for artists like Liza Minnelli and Ben Vereen in the ‘70s—what was that like?

A. Even that job was kind of thrown in my lap and I just went and did it. I did it for about five years and the thing that finally got to me is you’re constantly at that entertainer’s beck and call, 24 -7. So I was missing events, friends’ weddings, and I wasn’t living my own life, just was locked into doing whatever I had to do to keep that entertainer on the road and happening. Five years of it was enough—I wanted to stay in one place for a while. I’d live in New York City and moved back to Dallas for a year and worked for an entertainment company a for nine months and was going stir crazy in an office every day.

That’s when I friend of mine thought, let’s live in London and let’s go to cooking school. I can only believe in pre-destiny because of what’s happened to me. There’s no way I should be doing what I’m doing but maybe there is. I remember growing up, I was a candy-striper for years and worked at the children’s hospital in Dallas and loved it. My only A in high school was in biology and looking back I should have been a doctor or a nurse. Even today I love watching those hospital shows and for years they used to call me Flo at the restaurant after Florence Nightingale, because if anyone got hurt I was there taking care of them.

Q. Did your marriage to Joe change when you opened Hali`imaile?

A. Oh yes. I like telling people who wants to open a restaurant you have to make sure you have another income in the family. The first 5 years we were open we put every dime we made back into the company—I didn’t take a paycheck for five years. Joe was still working, but what changed was when he came home and decided to stop doing his work. Then he had his two cents to put into the business, which I was already running the way I wanted it to run.

We have different business styles, so there’s was a real adjustment period, first because he was home all the time when I was used him being home a few months a year. But we got through that part, too. It’s such a tough business—it’s 24-7 so if one person is doing it and the other isn’t, the other doesn’t get enough together time. If you work together then you have different ways of doing things. You’re always on the edge in the business no matter how successful you are.

Q. How is do your relationship and business work now?

A. We’ve been together 29 years and about 4 years go we finally figured it out. Sometimes it just takes a while. We actually decided that one of us has to be the one in charge. Since I was doing it anyway, working 24-7, he took a big step back and he became my biggest supporter. Instead of making it his way he helped make sure it happened my way. Now he plays golf and poker, he’s my sounding board and his key part in all this is he knows exactly where every penny goes.

Q. After almost thirty years of marriage do you find it runs like a kitchen does or different—maybe like a show?

A. It runs like a kitchen show! You know what it is, it’s really great when you get to a point in the relationship…Women are women and men are men. We think and act differently and when you can work on it enough where you can figure out the communication part where I realize when he gets upset with me it may not really be about me and I don’t egg it on. Or I come in and yell and scream about something and I just want him to listen and not fix it. When you learn how to have that communication the fights and yelling stop and you sit down and say let’s talk.

I have a really, really great husband who married someone who was there for him 100 percent of the time and 10 years after we were married I became a completely different person—I became a business person. Where I had an adjustment when he came home, he had a big adjustment because I was no longer giving him my full attention. We could have easily given up a lot of times but we both made a commitment to each other. Sometimes you go through bad times and come out at a higher level, and go through another bad time and get to an even higher level. It’s nice when you get off the roller coaster and get on the merry go round.

Q. In your new cookbook, you follow your mother’s meal schedule. What else of your mother’s do you hold on to, in addition to meal planning. Is there a touchstone?

A. My mother lived an emotionally abused life. My father was a very strong person. What she taught me was how not to be hurt. She was a worrier, and she was the sweetest, most giving, wonderful person. She taught me humility, and she taught me not to worry because it didn’t do her any good. I don’t worry about something happening, though I do have concerns. She totally taught me the value of the dollar and that a good day’s work is a good day’s work, and you wake up the next day and do another good day’s work. So when you get in bed you can say I did the best I could do today and I’ll get up and do it tomorrow.

The eyeglasses she wore the last years of her life sit on my kitchen counter so she’s there. I have all her doilies from the ‘50s—I’m a hoarder so I save it all. I have all her aprons. She passed away 10 years ago, so we talk about her and remember. She’s totally around me. I pass by a mirror sometimes and I go, now wait a minute, why’s my mother in that mirror instead of me?

Q. With so many duties—Hali`imaile, Joe’s, two cookbooks, ten years as executive chef of Hawaiian Airlines, the Lanai Hotel—how do you keep a life balance?

A. I have people say to me all the time how do you do it and I sit back and you know it’s just what I do—I don’t know a different way of life. I quadruple book myself and then think how can I do this, but when I do it it’s very satisfying. I do get my breaks and time off which a lot of people don’t see. Sometimes I can stay in bed all day long on Sunday and read newspapers and magazines and watch movies I tape and I’m as happy as a clam, but then I’m raring to go the next day. I don’t know how to stop.

I’m driven and that comes from my dad. I like what I do and I like pushing the envelope. There will probably be another restaurant by the end of the year. When things get to a certain place I’m ready for the next challenge. Not that the restaurant business isn’t challenging every day, but I’m not a ledge anymore and I need to be on the ledge.

Q. After a long day of work, what do you cook at home, especially now that you’ve remodeled your dream kitchen?

A. Well on a good day—not a lot. One of my favorite meals is roasted root vegetables and a perfectly cooked organic chicken that has flavor. What I do a lot is, I think if I’m going to cook to for two I can cook for six, and if I can cook for six I can cook for twelve. Once a month I have people over for dinner now, and one of my favorite dishes that I put on the menu at Joe’s is julienne short rib and wild mushroom pasta. We also do a lot of breakfast in our house and Joe makes the best fried egg, avocado, tomato, cheese, whole grain bread sandwich with bacon.

It’s interesting, I’m very good at taking care of business and other people, and for a lot of years I put me to the side. During the last eight months I’ve totally changed my lifestyle, and I work out every day and I’ve lost 50 pounds. I eat differently and so what I cook now when I cook for me is I do a lot with fresh vegetable stir fries with extra virgin olive oil and lots of seasonings, fresh herbs like lemongrass where the flavor doesn’t’ come from anything creamy or saucy. I’ve been making really good soups—make a stock and then a chunky or puree soup. I eat a lot of that now.

So for the first time in 15 years I’ve been eating a lot cleaner. Because of the business I’m in I love fois gras and I’ve had it since I’ve been on this program but I don’t have 4 ounces of it in one sitting. I’ve learned this whole new way of eating which will start showing up on my menus because you can eat very good, flavorful food that’s healthy. I want to be able to get the healthy choice on my menu. Customers don’t have to take it but it’s there.

Q. What do you think the reception will be to these new dishes?

A. Some people will be thankful that they’re there. I’ve become my own worst customer, asking for this without this and this on the side, steamed not sautéed. It doesn’t have to be more than 5 or 6 items to be able to say if you want to eat healthy you can. I think people will like it. If I saw it on the menu I would order it. I’m still going to eat other food, just not every time.

Q. Is your approach to cooking usually about life experiences?

A. My approach is what I like to eat. If you look at my menus at both restaurants it’s pretty eclectic. I like this dish with a Japanese Mexican influence, and this one with Italian flavor. It then allows my customer to come in three or four nights a week and eat a completely different kind of food and flavor profile.

Q. So does eating your food give diners a sense of you?

A. Absolutely. They totally can get it. If you read the menu you know where I’m coming from which is all over the place and it’s okay!

Q. Has the Hali`imaile become part of residents’ life experience?

A. We are part of people’s lives and there are people who come to Maui year after year and they’re the ones who walk in the door if they don’t have the thing on the menu that they had before until I say try this and it become they’re new favorite. People say don’t ever change it. It’s a unique place that’s works. Who would’ve thought it would last 20 years? In that time we’ve maintained or raised the quality and level of what we’re offering.

You can’t be perfect all 20 years but we’ve come close to being way above average the entire time—closer to excellent. And that’s not just me, hundreds of people who have worked for my companies over the years that put their footprint on it have made it what it is today—the customers, staff, I just drive the bus, but we’re all still going in the same direction.

Q. What sparked the idea for your new restaurant?

A. Part of it is the new challenge and seeing a need for something in an area that it doesn’t have. I’m looking at creating a place where locals and tourists alike can feel comfortable, which happens at Hali`imaile but not in the Wailea area. It’s going to be casual fine dining but will also allow me to do what I do best—off premise catering that’s not too far off premise. There are times when I want to change the style and how I serve the food, but Joe’s and Hali`imaile have their personalities and I can’t change that. So now I have a certain design of food I want to do that’s different, so I want that creative outlet. After thirty years of living on Maui and looking around at what’s here, I’m looking at what I can offer that’s different.

I don’t want to go anywhere else. I get offers to open places everywhere. But I love living on Maui and this is where I want to be. Even in this particular economy I don’t have a second thought about opening a new place because I truly believe things are going to turn around and be better than they were, and so I’m moving ahead.

You can only be optimistic. Human beings need to always remember the glass if half full not half empty. The minute you think it’s half empty that’s where your life is going to be. Even when things are going pretty badly, you have to keep a positive attitude and it’s going to turn around quicker with a positive attitude than not.

--Interview by CHRISTINE THOMAS
(Shorter version published in Modern Luxury Hawaii, Summer '09)

The Appel of Our Eye

Wind back time just a few years, and the Victorian-era Hawaiian Hall at the Bishop Museum appears, practically untouched since its 1893 construction. But rather than offering a pristine window into Hawai`i’s past, the founding icon of the state’s largest museum had become more embarrassing eyesore than grand showpiece. Inside the stifling three-story structure, every surface was blemished, alcoves cluttered with unrelated exhibits explaining Hawaiian culture as if it were dead, while antiquated lighting and ventilation rendered it impossible to show more than a tenth of the Museum’s vast collection.

Enter Ralph Appelbaum, the revolutionary museum designer arguably most celebrated for the emotionally challenging and technologically stunning Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington D.C.. Alongside a collaborative team, topped by historic restoration experts Mason Architects, and including scholars, designers, conservationists, artists, cultural practitioners, and Bishop Museum staff, in 2004 Ralph Appelbaum Associates began the process of the Hall’s challenging, five-year restoration and redesign, opened to the public for the first time August 8. Today the Hall shines as powerfully as it did when first opened, but has now been ushered into the 21^st century as only Appelbaum could—with an evocative, modern way of telling an old, familiar tale.

“Our ultimate goal was to take this very beautiful Victorian museum and restore it to literally its original glory,” says a modest Appelbaum, who has worked in museum design for over 25 years and counts the Hall as his company’s 104^th opening. “It’s a step back in time with certain touches of modernity to help you go deeper into the nature of the Hawaiian story.”

In the first stage of restoration, spearheaded by Mason Architects, the original Koa wood interior was meticulously returned to auburn perfection, and the painted columns to their original bronze patina. The Hale Pili, the sole example of an original Hawaiian hale (house), and model heiau (sacred temple) perch reconstructed on the polished mosaic-tiled ground floor. The beloved 55-foot sperm whale model was cleaned and returned to its original 1902 ceiling spot, joined now new stingray, ulua, a 14-foot Tiger Shark and other significant animal and ‘aumakua (guardian) models, as well as a century-old double-hull canoe. Koa window panels, fiber optic lighting and state-of-the-art climate controls were installed to meet global conservation standards and allow precious artifacts such as ali`i feather capes of Kamehameha the Great and Queen Lili`uokalani, feather kahili standards, and basketry images to be displayed for the first time in generations.

This important work formed the foundation for what would be Appelbaum’s core challenge—narrating the story of the Hawaiian people through their voice, rather than an authoritative Western perspective. Because not only the Hall’s physical structure but also its interpretation of objects remained stuck in the 19th century. “Previously, it might have talked about how taro was the main staple of the Hawaiian diet: ’They’ prepared it by baking it in an underground oven,” explains project manager Noelle Kahanu. “It’s a ‘they’ and it’s past tense.”

Appelbaum’s holistic redesign for the first time facilitates storytelling from a present-day “we” perspective. Quotes by modern practitioners appear alongside ancient objects, which will flank hands-on activities, contemporary Hawaiian art, chants, and video about current issues such as language, land claims, and statehood to show continuity of a living culture. And the displays are organized so that visitors will experience the Hawaiian worldview of realms firsthand. The first floor is now Kai Akea, representing pre-contact times and the ancestral realm; the second is Wao Kanaka, the human realm, where people live, work, farm, and fish; the third is Wao Lani, of gods and ali`i. Each new exhibit and inner track of railing cases connect to the next, highlighting Hawaiian culture as it was and as it is lived and practiced today.

“Visitors won’t just be looking at objects through a window,” says Appelbaum, but actively engaging in an interactive journey through past and present Hawaiian culture—one he hopes will inspire fresh thinking and impassioned dialogue about the issues of today. “They’ll see Hawai`i through the eyes, words and objects of the people who loved it first.”

--Christine Thomas, originally published in the summer 2009 issue of Modern Luxury Hawaii.

*Note: Since I was traveling in August, I missed the Hawaiian Hall's grand opening and have only seen the hall with koa gleaming, hale pili and heiau near-completion, and sperm whale model clean and suspended in air. I hope this article inspires you to visit the Hall again, and again... I hear there is just so much to see and do it's impossible to complete it all in one visit.

Let Them Eat . . .

No matter your culture or upbringing, food brings everyone in Hawai`i together. And whether these new local cookbooks inspire you to create a new dish or visit the chef’s restaurant instead, their original recipes will spice up the last moments of this long, hot summer.

Family-Style Meals at the Hali'imaile General Store, TEN SPEED PRESS

It’s all about protein in James Beard Award-nominated chef and Hawai`i Regional Cuisine co-founder Beverly Gannon’s newest recipe collection. Family Style Meals at the Hali`imaile General Store spotlights 90 dishes unusually organized just like Gannon’s childhood meal schedule—by days of the week and corresponding chief proteins (think chicken, oxtail, lobster, quail and more). Each sit-down brunch, inventive stir-fry, nouveau casserole lunch and hearty dinner menu is easy for busy home cooks to make but can be easily expanded for larger soirees. Family anecdotes sprinkled amidst illustrative photographs of island life reveal Gannon to be as down to earth as her food—cuisine she hopes will bond your family together for meals to come.

The Maui Book of Lavender, Watermark publishing

We say lavender, you think Provence. But Maui’s Ali`i Kula Lavender farm delivers this ancient herb direct to the Islands, growing 45 varieties surrounded by picturesque olive trees on high Haleakala slopes. They also collaborate with other Maui businesses to create more than 75 lavender-based products, and now they’re partnering with you through their first book. The Maui Book of Lavender tempts with 40 unexpected lavender recipes, such as lavender crab and mango spring rolls, lavender pepper shrimp, lavender-lilikoi chicken, and lavender shortbread. And when you’ve tired of cooking, they generously divulge a short history of lavender abroad and in Hawai`i, as well as non-culinary instructions for health remedies, home crafts, and even growing your very own.

What the Big Island Likes to Eat, Mutual publishing

Every Hawaiian island is unique, which is just one reason food columnist Audrey Wilson’s second cookbook focuses solely on the Big Island, from plantation and paniolo favorites to laid-back comfort food emphasizing local produce and products. What the Big Island Likes to Eat bursts at the seams with 120 recipes unlocking secrets of classic garnishes like omelet shreds, preparations like char siu, diverse cultural treats like sweet-sour lemons and traditional Japanese Sekihan, lu`au staples like palusami and chicken long rice, recipes from new chefs and old-time restaurants like Kealakekua’s Teshima store, sweet treats, and the best omiyage. With plentiful helpings of history and evocative photos to boot, it’s a delectable window into the Big Island’s culinary past and present.

The Island Plate II, Island heritage publishing

Food editor Wanda Adams dishes up a second serving of Honolulu Advertiser recipes in The Island Plate II, reduces the previous focus on history and concentrating instead on varied flavors and concoctions presented in ultra-local sections. ‘Da Kine’ has everything from Hawaiian iced tea to Portuguese pickled onion; ‘Pupu and Potluck’ is reserved for—what else?—parties; while still others corral daily island-style entrees like Alan Wong’s Poi Stew, sides like Adams’ own Rice Gone Wild, favorite sweets (think Dobash Cake and Almond cookies), and beloved restaurant recipes such as Michel’s onion soup and Yum Yum Tree’s English Toffee pie. Even as modern island history marches on, this series stays up to date with our evolving culture and taste buds.

--Originally published in the Summer 2009 Issue of Modern Luxury Hawai`i.

Book Review: Of Bees & Mist ~ A recognizeable geography

Of Bees and Mist
By Erick Setiawan

(Simon & Schuster; 404 pages; $25)

Published in the San Francisco Chronicle
Friday 21 August, 2009

Forget the melting pot - when raised with a diverse conglomeration of cultures and geographies, you're more likely to feel perpetually displaced rather than abundantly connected.

That's why San Francisco computer scientist-turned-author Erick Setiawan regularly used literature as an escape from a trifold identity struggle - born in Jakarta, Indonesia, to Chinese parents, where he lived before immigrating to the United States at age 16 - and the resulting confusion and discrimination. It makes sense, then, that in Setiawan's debut novel, "Of Bees and Mist," he concocts a richly drawn, private fantasy world where he could, for once, feel perfectly at home.

This hefty book's imaginary geography is pregnant with customs, beliefs, superstitions and folklore that have fascinated Setiawan since youth; he even incorporates in his central character Meridia a taste for Chinese "salted plums, sticky buns, (and) sweet bean curd in steaming ginger soup." Though modern elements, such as nail salons and massage therapists, alight here, the setting is also suspended beyond time in an era that feels ancient and otherworldly - one where gold bars are deposited on doorsteps and women are strategically married off. And within his ambitious, 30-year canvas, the story arc is driven by Setiawan's childhood, transformed into the depiction of Meridia's prolonged feud with her mother-in-law, Eva, while her son Noah is stuck in the middle, navigating blows.

It's an undeniably intriguing landscape, and Setiawan's luxuriously paced descriptions and whimsical, inventive devices can be seductive. But not all readers will feel at home here. The simple narrative - led by a clairvoyant narrator who sticks close to Meridia (except for a few unnecessary and momentary slips into other points of view) - is a magical realism hybrid, despite Setiawan's protestations that he merely siphoned multiple influences, from Chinese martial arts films to English literature, and, yes, Márquez.

In the town market, "a woman grew herbs out of her body ... which customers plucked fresh with their own hands." At Meridia's childhood home, the stairs move about like those in "Harry Potter" films, and mirrors are "full of tricks and surprises, incapable of reflecting the plainest truth." And each night, Meridia's father disappears into colorful mists, while her mother is imprisoned by forgetfulness.

Yet fantastical worlds thrive only when the rules are clearly delineated, and Setiawan counts too heavily on readers' willingness to overlook contradictions, ignore one-off events present purely for amusement and to spot details that really do have meaning. When Meridia and other characters are swarmed by "bees," only the consistency of their appearance allows us to interpret their clever representation, while other times, such as the unexplained and unusual cameo appearance of Meridia's imaginary friend, enchanted elements don't fit in Setiawan's otherwise "normal" backdrop and lack meaningful symbolism.

Setiawan doesn't seem too concerned with ensuring that his narrative always "makes sense," however; rather, the randomness and amalgamation of stories and superstitions are there precisely to fulfill his personal desires. So, Meridia's father, Gabriel, disappears in mists because Setiawan likes how Chinese martial arts films use that technique, and a lecherous half-swine man who emerges late in the novel is so drawn simply because Setiawan enjoys the Javanese legend. But what amuses Setiawan isn't always justified within the story's integrity, so it's a boon when midway through, the use of magical ingredients become purposeful and the rules largely defined.

If it weren't for a grounded, authentic plot, the book might become perilously untethered. The portrait of Meridia's struggles for independence while growing up with unusually distant parents is touchingly sketched: "Between Ravenna's forgetfulness and Gabriel's disdain, Meridia found herself transformed into a phantom."

Her marriage at 16, to her first love, Daniel, is a story that pulses with life even as it delivers her into Eva's hellishly unyielding grip. And when her sheltered naivete is shattered when she realizes that Daniel is blind to his mother's "talent for finding faults, even when none existed," the two families clash like Capulets and Montagues. These battles are universal, allowing a deep point of connection that's just enough to overlook some unnecessary magical distractions.

Where Setiawan ultimately succeeds is crafting memorable, identifiable characters and an enjoyable story rooted in human emotion. For love, longing and the pain of compromise is indeed recognizable to all - no matter our culture or geography.

--Reviewed by CHRISTINE THOMAS