Ginny is a waiflike department store employee. Desperate for love but unwilling to keep her opinions to herself, she alienates the few good men who come her way. Michael is a graphic artist doing cut-and-paste work in New York's Chinatown. Talented but lacking in ambition, he figures women look right through him--and can't really blame them. Then one Christmas both Ginny and Michael give up on life, only to find something infinitely more wonderful. Because after risking everything, they soon discover, amid the glittering December snow, a romance awash with all the wonders of the hereafter, but with a great deal to teach us all about living here on Earth.
Alan Brennert is the author of the best-selling historical novels MOLOKA'I and HONOLULU, as well as the contemporary novels TIME AND CHANCE and KINDRED SPIRITS. He has also written short stories, teleplays, screenplays, and the libretto of a stage musical, WEIRD ROMANCE, with music by Alan Menken and lyrics by David Spencer. His work on the television series L.A. LAW earned him an Emmy Award in 1991, and his short story "Ma Qui" was honored with a Nebula Award in 1992.
Born in Englewood, New Jersey, he has lived since 1973 in Southern California. He holds a Bachelor's degree in English from California State University at Long Beach, and also did graduate work in screenwriting at UCLA.
His latest novel, HONOLULU, grew out of the research he did for MOLOKA'I. "One of the most colorful periods of modern Hawaiian history was the so-called 'glamour days' of the 1920s and 1930s," Alan explains. "This was a time period I couldn't really explore in depth in MOLOKA'I, since my main characters were in isolation at Kalaupapa. These were the years when Hawai'i made its deepest impression on the American consciousness: the years of Matson liners, the China Clipper, Hollywood celebrities vacationing in Honolulu, and the Hawai'i Calls radio show that broadcasted popular hapahaole music to the mainland. Yet at the same time this image of paradise was being presented to the American public, many Native Hawaiians and immigrants to Hawai'i labored on plantations for low wages or lived in poverty in Honolulu tenements. So HONOLULU, the novel, is partly about this collision of image and reality...and how that reality was actually far richer and more captivating."
