The Last Paradise (Literature of the American West) [Hardcover]

James M. Houston (Author)

Book Description

Series: Literature of the American West | Publication Date: February 1998

Resonating with ancient themes of quest and transformation, The Last Paradise follows Travis Doyle, a Vietnam veteran working as an insurance claims adjuster, from California to Hawaii. Doyle is dispatched to investigate fire damage to outbuildings, equipment, and vehicles at a geothermal drilling site located in volcanic lava fields believed by the local inhabitants to be the home of Pele, the fire goddess.

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Editorial Reviews

From Library Journal

Continuing his saga of the Doyle family begun in Continental Drift (LJ 8/78), Houston focuses on Travis Doyle, a Vietnam veteran whose nightmares persist almost 15 years later. Now an insurance claims adjuster, Travis is sent to the Big Island of Hawaii to investigate a fire at the site of geothermal excavations near volcanic lava fields. What he finds, along with Angel Sakai, his long-lost first love, is a community both enraged by environmental depredations and concerned about insults to Pele, the volcano goddess. Attempting to unravel the cause of the fire, Travis and Angel find themselves healed by the fiery eruptions of Pele, whose powerful presence manipulates all the characters and events. Houston's masterly handling of the relationship between people's lives and the forces of nature and his red-hot depiction of Angel and Travis's blazing love affair have created a first-class read for popular fiction collections.?Andrea Caron Kempf, Johnson Cty. Community Coll. Lib.,Overland Park, Kan.
Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Booklist

Don't let the dippy title deceive: this is a lush, lyrical novel, effectively combining a mystery story, a love story, and a glowing tapestry of Hawaiian life and culture. Travis returns to Hawaii from San Francisco in the mid-1980s as an insurance adjuster examining a claim. He is about to be divorced and is still trying to assimilate both his relationship to his parents and his time in Vietnam. He wants to find Angel again, too, the part-Hawaiian woman he first made love to when they were teenagers, brought together by their families' visit to Pearl Harbor and their birthdays but a week apart. Houston writes in the present tense, but his characters shift forward and backward in their thinking and conversation. The spirit of Pele, the volcano goddess, is crucial to the differences between how the locals and Travis' company see the fire claim and the movement of lava. There is no woozy environmentalism here, but a genuine sense of Hawaiians' relationship with their islands. Houston holds us with the tenderness he lavishes on Travis and Angel, with his beautiful descriptions of sky and light--he writes about them as he would about a lover--and with his calm acceptance of Pele's power. GraceAnne A. DeCandido

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 384 pages
• Publisher: University of Oklahoma Press (February 1998)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0806130334
• ISBN-13: 978-0806130330
• Product Dimensions: 8.8 x 5.9 x 1.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 3.3 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #5,504,794 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Looks formulaic at first, but blossoms into a fine novel., November 23, 1998

By A Customer

This review is from: The Last Paradise (Literature of the American West) (Hardcover)

A restless VietNam vet PI, a beautiful mixed-blood Hawaiian woman, slimeball corporations, spiritual but passive islanders, the Goddess Pele: this is potentially as dangerous ground as a fresh lava flow. Fortunately, Houston is a sufficiently subtle author to create credible and sympathetic characters, provide suspense and surprise, and keep the reader totally engaged. Not as strong as Kiana Davenport's magnicent Shark Dialogues, but a very entertaning page turner with a good environmental message.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Paradigm Regained, December 28, 2001

By 

James R. Harstad (Honolulu, HI USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Last Paradise (Literature of the American West) (Hardcover)

Before Michener, Hawai'i was an open-season setting for every visitor who made an occupation of putting pen to paper. Since the local literary renaissance, built in part on the objections of people who live in Hawai'i to Michener's failure to "get it right," few outsiders have stood up to challenge the likes of Darrell Lum, Lois-Ann Yamanaka, and -- most recently -- Chris McKinney. The Last Paradise is less a challenge to those talented local writers than a contribution to the widening pool of literature that celebrates an authentic Island experience without unduly demonizing or romanticizing. But romantic it is, in both the narrow, amorous sense and in the sense that inspires wonder at the natural and spritual forces that pervade human life, whether we pay homage to them or not. Jim Houston is not a Hawai'i-based writer, but he has spent considerable time here and his acculturation seems as complete as an outsider's can be. The writing is lyrically beautiful and authentic-feeling, and the characters Travis Doyle and Evangeline "Angel" Sakai are three-dimensional and vital as their mingling fluids. This is a good read, whether you grew up in Hawai'i like Angel or on the West Coast like Travis; it's a good read for anybody who likes to ponder things that count, such as how long this earth will continue to sustain human beings regardless of what we make of it or ourselves.