Customer Reviews

In Good Company (A Latitude 20 Book)

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Yamanaka has created a facinating world, likely not known many, the world of Hawaii for those who live there, for those who work there. I have always been fond of writers who can take what you think you know about a place and make you realize you didn't know very much at all. His stories are populated with dreamers and seekers (shut-in hitmen, wrestlers on the look-out for something more than headlocks, cursed poolplayers, men with questionable reputations who aren't quite who they seem)in a lush and complex paradise. They find trouble in this paradise and sometimes wonderful solutions in this paradise. The stories are often affecting tributes to the power of friendships as well as the salvation of family. They are told with great humor, a great eye to detail and with an empathy seldom seen in modern American fiction. This isn't the tedium of Michener or a postcard from the Travel Channel. This is the stuff real life wrought by a fine writer.

In Good Company is a brilliant collection of short stories about the struggles and hardships of everyday life in Hawaii. Cedric masterfully creates each character in his stories and shows how they come to terms with both their demons and fears. Sacred rocks, haunted houses, high-school crushes and fear of failure plague the characters in this collection of short stories. Cedric opens up with The Lemon Tree Billiards, a great story that was later made into a film, receiving top honors in the state of Hawaii. My personal favorite, What the Ironwoods Whispered, details the life of a boy, struggling to find his place in the world. He is torn between two worlds, that of his immediate life with his school drop-out friend and auto mechanic job, and that of the life he has yet to experience, if he is willing to take that risk. This story demonstrates that in the end, no matter how hectic and confusing life becomes, we will always find solitary with our true friends. Cedric closes his book with The Sand Island Drive-In Anthem, an excellent story which balances out the book and leave us craving more from this talented author. I have had the pleasure of meeting Mr. Yamanaka on a couple occasions and his colorful personality really shines through in his writing.

Virtually all serious fiction about Hawaii is in the 'local color' tradition, which is a dangerous one: the colorful locals can overwhelm the stories.

There is a lot of local color in Hawaii to write about, with its long-simmered melting pot of dramatically different cultural traditions. Cedric Yamanaka grew up among them, and although he is personally a cleancut young man (has to be, he's a television reporter), all his stories are about the scruffier side of local life. They are also all about teenage (in one case, an 11-year-old) boys and with one exception about sports.

The plots are contrived and fit uncomfortably in a landscape that is supposed to be realistic. In particular, in more than one story, Yamanaka gets almost rhapsodic about professional wrestling, island style, and his over-the-top descriptions are fun, but because they are over-the-top they take away from the overall effect of stories that are supposed to be realist. In one story, 'The Day Mr. Kaahunui Rebuilt My Old Man's Fence,' pro rasslin' is the centerpiece, and this is the most effective of the stories that feature wrestlers.

The best story among the eight is the shortest, 'Da Papah Fooball Champion,' which is the one about the 11-year-old boy.

In all Yamanaka's stories, the narrator speaks pidgen. It is a light pidgen, using orthography to relay primarily da flavah (the flavor) of the local language. Yamanaka avoids the vocabulary that can make heavy pidgen difficult for a speaker of Standard English to follow. But in all the stories except 'Papah Fooball Champion,' Yamanaka seesaws between dialogue reported in pidgen and narrative by a protagonist in Standard English. It makes his actors seem as if they are faking or putting on the local accent.

'Papah Fooball Champion' is straight pidgen, all personal, interior statement without any authorial description out of character. It is also a good story, not as contrived as the others, about a boy and his father -- 'Me and him, we nevah got along too good' -- and how the boy learns something new.

Second-best among the stories is 'The Three-and-a-half-hour Christmas Party,' although of all Yamanaka's contrived setups, this has the most contrived and unbelievable one. Once past that, though, the story develops well.