The Descendants: A Novel [Paperback]

Kaui Hart Hemmings (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: April 8, 2008

Narrated in a bold, fearless, unforgettable voice and set against the lush, panoramic backdrop of Hawaii, The Descendants is a stunning debut novel about an unconventional family forced to come together and re-create its own legacy.

Matthew King was once considered one of the most fortunate men in Hawaii. His missionary ancestors were financially and culturally progressive–one even married a Hawaiian princess, making Matt a royal descendant and one of the state’s largest landowners.

Now his luck has changed. His two daughters are out of control: Ten-year-old Scottie is a smart-ass with a desperate need for attention, and seventeen-year-old Alex, a former model, is a recovering drug addict. Matt’s charismatic, thrill-seeking, high-maintenance wife, Joanie, lies in a coma after a boat-racing accident and will soon be taken off life support. The Kings can hardly picture life without her, but as they come to terms with this tragedy, their sadness is mixed with a sense of freedom that shames them–and spurs them into surprising actions.

Before honoring Joanie’s living will, Matt must gather her friends and family to say their final goodbyes, a difficult situation made worse by the sudden discovery that there is one person who hasn’t been told: the man with whom Joanie had been having an affair, quite possibly the one man she ever truly loved. Forced to examine what he owes not only to the living but to the dead, Matt takes to the road with his daughters to find his wife’s lover, a memorable journey that leads to both painful revelations and unforeseen humor and growth.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Hemmings's bittersweet debut novel, an expansion of her first published short story ("The Minor Wars," from House of Thieves and originally published in StoryQuarterly), stars besieged and wryly introspective attorney Matt King, the land-rich descendant of Hawaiian royalty and American missionaries and entrepreneurs. He wrestles with the decision of whether to keep his swath of valuable inherited land or sell it to a real estate developer. But even more critical, Matt also has to decide whether to pull the plug on his wife, Joanie, who has been in an irreversible coma for 23 days following a boat-racing accident. Then Matt finds out that Joanie was having an affair with real estate broker Brian Speer, impelling him to travel with his two daughters—precocious 10-year-old Scottie and fresh from rehab 17-year-old Alex—from Oahu to Kauai to confront Brian. Matt finds out the truth about Joanie and Brian, which influences his decision about what to do with his family's on-the-block land and complicates his plans for Joanie. Matt's journey with his girls forms the emotional core of this sharply observed, frequently hilarious and intermittently heartbreaking look at a well-meaning but confused father trying to hold together his unconventional family. (May)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

From The New Yorker

The narrator of this audaciously comic début novel, the scion of the last Hawaiian landowning clan, has floated through his privileged life: marriage to a model given to "speedboats, motorcycles, alcoholism"; children getting into trouble (cocaine, bullying) at élite schools; membership at a century-old beach club that rejects those with "unfavorable pedigrees." But when a catamaran accident leaves his wife in a coma he must wake from his own "prolonged unconsciousness," reacquaint himself with his neglected daughters, and track down his wife’s lover. Meanwhile, his cousins are urging him to sell the family’s vast landholdings for development—to relinquish, in his eyes, the final vestige of their native Hawaiian ancestry. Hemmings channels the voice of her befuddled middle-aged hero with virtuosity, as he teeters between acerbic and sentimental, scoffing at himself even as he grasps for redemption.
Copyright © 2007 Click here to subscribe to The New Yorker --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 320 pages
• Publisher: Random House Trade Paperbacks; Reprint edition (April 8, 2008)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0812977823
• ISBN-13: 978-0812977820
• Product Dimensions: 5.2 x 0.7 x 8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 9.6 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (45 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #12,985 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Kaui Hart Hemmings was born and raised in Hawaii. She has degrees from Colorado College and Sarah Lawrence and was a Stegner Fellow at Stanford University. Her first novel, The Descendants, will be published in fourteen other countries and will be released as a film directed by Alexander Payne and starring George Clooney on November. 18 2011.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

64 of 67 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars "My wife's not coming back, my wife did not love me, and I am in charge now.", August 20, 2007

By 

Mary Whipple (New England) - See all my reviews
(TOP 50 REVIEWER)    (COMMUNITY FORUM 04)    (HALL OF FAME REVIEWER)   

This review is from: The Descendants: A Novel (Hardcover)

Matt King, who is descended from a Hawaiian princess and the haole who married her and inherited her land, is the primary beneficiary of the family land trust, and he is now trying to decide what to do with the land on behalf of his cousins and family. The trust is in debt and the demand for prime land in Hawaii is enormous. Matt, however, will be making no decisions in the immediate future, however. His thrill-seeking wife Joanie now lies comatose after a boating accident, and her lack of progress alarms the doctors in Honolulu, who have her on life support.

When doctors are forced to honor her living will, Matt wants their daughters to be with him, and in the hospital visiting Joanie while they await her death. Alexandra, a seventeen-year-old model, returns home from boarding school on the Big Island and, accompanied by Sid, a friend from a previous school, determines she will live her own life, even under the eyes of her father at home. Scottie, the ten-year-old, an attention seeker at school and at home, continues to act out.

When Matt discovers that Joanie has been having an affair, to which he had been oblivious, he is at a loss, and his internal dialogue and self-examination begin in earnest. He wonders about her lover and whether he should encourage this "love of her life" to share Joanie's last days in the hospital. His search for Joanie's lover and the resulting discoveries lead to important lessons and new awareness of his own responsibilities.

The clear presentation of events, exceptionally realistic dialogue, and unique imagery give life to this strong debut novel, and the narrative speeds along. The author's insights into Matt's conflicts and his self-examination during his long vigil, along with his daughters' understandable tumult, provide some emotional moments, while dark humor provides some respite from the tension. The subplots, involving the sale of the land, the individual problems of the daughters, the background of Alexandra's friend Sid, and the life of Joanie's lover, are well integrated, and the conclusion is satisfying.

Though the character of Matt is not based on any particular person, Hawaiian readers cannot help but make associations between his background and that of the Big Island's Parker family, giving an aura of "realism" to Matt's exotic background as the heir of a princess. His generosity in wanting to have Joanie's lover share her last moments strains credulity, however, and the peripheral characters often exhibit extreme behavior. A number of unusually dramatic and cinematic moments late in the novel make this a good story, though not necessarily a realistic one. Entertaining, and filled with tugs at the heartstrings, The Descendants captures the life of a family at a crossroads, and does so with panache. n Mary Whipple

16 of 16 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Better than the very wonderful movie..., December 4, 2011

By 

Ulysses - See all my reviews

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: The Descendants: A Novel (Kindle Edition)

Seeing the film "The Descendants" made me realize it must have come from a book; and so I found it and downloaded it onto my kindle. Not only should Clooney get an Oscar for his performance in the film, but whoever adapted this gentle, soulful, and ultimately transcendant little novel into the screenplay should get one too.

Kaui Hemmings' novel is low-key, unornamented, but richly textured with the complicated social and physical realities of Hawaii - a part of the United States that is by turns very familiar and as exotic as farthest Asia. Matt King and his two troubled daughters, Scottie and Alexandra, are trapped in a tragedy not entirely of their own making, and yet manage to hold onto each other to find their way together into something like happiness. The double gift of this elegantly spare book is that it tells us about an America few of us know, even if we've visited Hawaii as tourists; and it also lays out a searing historic moment in the life of this unique American family that is painful in its realism. I have never read a book that focuses on a great unhappiness, but also manages to capture both joy and humor while doing so. It is one of the few books made into films that made my appreciation of the movie greater in the reading of the book.

11 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars A light beach read, March 31, 2010

By 

E. Chambers (Honolulu) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: The Descendants: A Novel (Paperback)

The themes driving this novel are terrific: a middle-aged man waking up to his responsibilities as a father, husband, and landowner while his wife is taken off life-support as she sinks into an irreversible coma.

Despite the grim subject matter, the book was an entertaining read. The author's writing style is crisp and clear, so it's easy to read the book in just a few hours. The narrator -- Matt King -- is cynical and smart, and his observations of the people around him are entertaining. As a resident of the Kahala area in Honolulu, it was fun to hear descriptions of nearby places. But on the whole, I felt that the book was pretty superficial. The characters all seem like caricatures: exaggerated with big outlines, but with little substance. I thought the character of the 10-year old daughter was completely unbelievable - she should have been drawn as a 12 or 13 year old.

As another of this book's reviewers said, ultimately this book is unsatisfying because it fails to treat the premise with the depth it deserves.