Customer Reviews

Makai

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A popular Hawaiian bumper sticker asserts, "Poi happens," while a contemporary Hawaiian song repeats the refrain, "No huhu (stay cool)." Kathleen Tyau develops these quintessentially Hawaiian themes as she traces the aspirations and disappointments of two women and their friendships, loves, and families over the course of forty years. Alice Lum, the Chinese/Hawaiian narrator, sensitively observes people and events from her perspective as a 50-ish mother of adult children, at the same time that she reminisces about her life as a young girl in Honolulu in the time of the Pearl Harbor attack and later as a young wife living in the remote Maui town of Hana. Most of these memories involve Annabel Lee, her hapa-haole (part Causasian) best friend from St. Andrew's Priory, with whom she still feels close--"The sisters taught me religion, but Annabel taught me how to dream."

With her chatty tone, short sentences, and occasional lapses into pidgin, Alice recreates her domestic life without embellishment or exaggeration, her story achieving power through her acceptance of events and circumstances which might have crushed a weaker woman. Unlike Annabel, whose goal was always to escape the islands into a more glamorous life on the mainland, Alice "makes do," achieving a dignity and nobility through her acceptance of what is--"We have our own battlefields. We survive in our own way." As she reveals her life and talks about those she loves, we gain insights not only into personalities, especially that of Annabel, but also into the culture which Alice has embraced. Alice is a vibrant force to which readers will be drawn and a person with whom many will identify. No huhu, Alice. Mary Whipple

The first-person character Alice Lum and her friends and family provide keen insights into the souls of those born and raised in Hawaii - "locals". The author's skillful manipulation of dialogue and storytelling allows the reader to explore the cultural and linguistic idiosyncracies, particularly of persons of Chinese and Japanese descent, in Hawaii. In so doing, one cannot help but reflect on the universality of the paradoxes that drive, or inhibit the lives of humankind. For a local boy, it provides an opportunity to laugh, first of all at myself, and then with/at the characters, for whom I have other names. Kathleen Tyau transports me in time to a Honolulu I remember fondly, to places and about things forever indelible in my mind, irreplaceable in my heart.

A wonderful story! I truly enjoyed this book, a great story and a true feeling for life in multi-cultural Hawaii, WWII in Honolulu, and the universal theme of family, motherhood, friendships and all the trials and exasperation that goes with life. I would recommend this to anyone.

This is a great and memorable read from a fresh voice out of the asian american community. You hear the narrator speaking and can see the scenery. Makes you long to go to Hawaii to hold her hand through her trials and tribulations. This is a seasoned story, a great new voice to read. Akin to the charm of Yamanaka's stories. Cant wait to see what she comes up with next.

Alice Lum has always felt overshadowed by her best friend, the beautiful, vivacious and high-strung Annabel Lee. Growing up in Hawaii together before and during WWII, they competed for high school boyfriends and, later, the American GIs they were paid to dance with. Now, Annabel is returning from the mainland for her first visit in 30 years, unaware that Alice's daughter and Annabel's son have recently become lovers. The impending visit prompts Alice to reexamine her life and confront the jealousies, fears and old wounds of her past. A delightfully written tale of family, friendship and the resilience of the human spirit.

Makai represents s a great advance over the author's superb first novel. Set in Hawaii during and following WWII, it deals with female friendship, mismatched love, lost hopes, and generational triumph. The narrative line, characters, voice, imagery, empathy, sense of place and time all come together convincingly and there are moments that take a reader's breath away. Everyone central to the book--the six main characters--is fully fleshed out. The story is rich, though the shifting frame of time lets us glimpse many of the key events early on; though the pull of the setting and mood makes us want to slow down, we read quickly. And the whole structure is so shifty, not just the sense of time but the language as it moves from pidgen to interior monologue to dreamy/surreal impressionism to "straight" narrative. Past is present, history is the future, what was is, and yet it's all surprisingly fresh. The grieving characters in their many losses sustain sympathy in the reader and there's not a whiff of sentimentality. A very powerful novel.

This is a novel about the 35 year friendship between tow Chinese/Hawaiian women as told by one of them, Alice Yum. Her friend, Annabel Lee is coming to Hawaii for a visit and this event triggers a long, fond reminiscence on Alice's part, this reminiscence being the story here.

I had earlier read Tyau's A Little Too Much is Enough and liked it quite a bit. I basically liked this book as well but I have to say certain aspects of Tyau's writing style grow a bit irritating over time. The book is written as one long verbal exposition, much of it in a pidgin English that, while on the one hand is ethnically honest, nevertheless becomes a bit tiring. There is also a tendency to break the exposition into a large array of very small bits--some as short as a sentence or two--which detract from the flow of the narrative.

However, other than these issues Tyau does have a generous and warm style that elegantly captures her protagonists charm and wit. The story extends from the period just before the attack on Pearl Harbor through the late 20th century. The centerpiece of the story revolves around how the war impacted the lives of these two women, whose responses were divergent indeed.

This novel stands as a better than average character portrait and a generally engaging novel. I actually thought A Little Too Much is Enough was a better book but if you have any interest in the Hawaiian experience at all this will stand as a very satisfying read.