Customer Reviews

The Forgotten One

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This was Hall's last book, a collection of six short stories about Americans and Europeans he knew personally during his years on Tahiti. The title story, The Forgotten One, is probably the most interesting. Written half a century ago, it tells the tale of an Englishman who couldn't come to terms with own sexuality and fled to a remote atoll in the Tuamotu Islands to be alone. The story seems strange today when gays are largely accepted, but during the 1950s such cases were plausible. The final story in the collection, Frisbie of Danger Island, is an annotated series of letters Hall received from his good friend, Robert Dean Frisbie, or 'Ropati' as the Cook Islanders called him. Frisbie's one literary success, The Book of Pukapuka, can be ordered through this website. Hall's story chronicles Frisbie's years of poverty and rejected manuscripts, as well as his famous experience of a hurricane on Suwarrow Atoll. By the way, if you'll be visiting Tahiti, a James Norman Hall Museum opened recently in his original home at Arue just outside Papeete. If you've read any of his books, the museum is a must.