Song of the Exile (Ballantine Reader's Circle) [Paperback]

Kiana Davenport (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: July 5, 2000 | Series: Ballantine Reader's Circle

In this epic, original novel in which Hawaii's fierce, sweeping past springs to life, Kiana Davenport, author of the acclaimed Shark Dialogues, draws upon the remarkable stories of her people to create a timeless, passionate tale of love and survival, tragedy and triumph, survival and transcendence. In spellbinding, sensual prose, Song of the Exile follows the fortunes of the Meahuna family--and the odyssey of one resilient man searching for his soul mate after she is torn from his side by the forces of war. From the turbulent years of World War II through Hawaii's complex journey to statehood, this mesmerizing story presents a cast of richly imagined characters who rise up magnificent and forceful, redeemed by the spiritual power and the awesome beauty of their islands.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

The devastating effect of WWII on two Hawaiian families pervades this haunting novel that spans three continents and decades. Davenport (Shark Dialogues) traces the stories of Sun-ja Uanoe Sung (Sunny), a Hawaiian/Korean student from an educated family, and Keo, a native jazz musician, who meet and fall in love in Honolulu in the mid-1930s. When Keo (sometimes known as Hula Man) gets a chance to travel with a jazz band, he leaves Sunny for New Orleans and Paris. His reputation as a genius hornblower blossoms as quickly as racist violence darkens Nazi-infested Europe. Sunny escapes her fractured family life in Honolulu and journeys to join Keo in the City of Light. She revolts against the Nazi brutality she finds there, worrying also about the fate of her clubfooted sister, Lili, who was cast out by their father before Sunny was born. Arriving in Shanghai to look for Lili, Sunny is kidnapped and held captive as a "P-girl," servicing Japanese soldiers. Sunny is selected by one officer for proprietary use; her harrowing plight and that of thousands of other women and girls (some prepubescent) are described in searingly graphic detail. After the war, these women (who've aged several decades for every year of captivity) are too traumatized and ashamed to aid the Allies' feeble attempts at prosecution. There seems to be no real recovery from this level of atrocity, and Keo's story cannot equal Sunny's in intensity. After the war, Keo continues to search for Sunny, mourning and playing music. While the novel's nonsequential structure feels disjointed early on, it gains focus and power as Sunny's story unfolds. In the political maneuvering for Hawaii's statehood in 1959, the two families, bearing their emotional and physical scars, find some form of healing. Davenport's prose can verge on the purple, especially when describing Keo's musical artistry, yet overall she tells a powerful tale of love and loss. (Aug.) FYI: Davenport grew up in Honolulu, the daughter of a native Hawaiian whose ancestors were Tahitians, and a U.S. sailor from Alabama.
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Library Journal

Hawaiian-born Davenport's new novel continues the forceful and lush yet unromanticized depiction of her native islands that characterized her debut, Shark Dialogues (LJ 4/1/94). Though Davenport reintroduces Pono, the kahuna or seer who dominated Shark Dialogues, star-crossed lovers Keo and Sunny are the heart of Song of the Exile. Keo, a talented jazz musician, leaves home and family to pursue his musical obsession. Sunny follows him to Paris, but the horrors of World War II separate them. Sunny eventually suffers the fate that thousands of women endured as "comfort women," or forced prostitutes for Japanese soldiers. Davenport's scope broadens to cover Keo's family, the Meahunas, but the suffering, tragedy, and survival of these lovers remain the haunting, mesmerizing centerpiece. This should join other Hawaiian fiction on library shelves, including Nora Okja Keller's Comfort Woman (LJ 1/97) and Sylvia Watanabe's Talking to the Dead (LJ 8/92). Recommended.AFaye A. Chadwell, Univ. of Oregon Libs., Eugene
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 360 pages
• Publisher: Ballantine Books (July 5, 2000)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0345434943
• ISBN-13: 978-0345434944
• Product Dimensions: 5.5 x 0.8 x 8.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 10.4 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (26 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #154,367 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

KIANA DAVENPORT is descended from a full-blooded Native Hawaiian mother, and a Caucasian father from Talladega, Alabama. Her father, Braxton Bragg Davenport, was a sailor in the U.S. Navy, stationed at Pearl Harbor, when he fell in love with her mother, Emma Kealoha Awaawa Kanoho Houghtailing. On her mother's side, Kiana traces her ancestry back to the first Polynesian settlers to the Hawaiian Islands who arrived almost two thousand years ago from Tahiti and the Tuamotu's. On her father's side, she traces her ancestry to John Davenport, the puritan clergyman who co-founded the American colony of New Haven, Connecticut in 1638.

Kiana is the author of the internationally best-selling novels, SHARK DIALOGUES, SONG OF THE EXILE, HOUSE OF MANY GODS, and a forthcoming novel, THE SPY LOVER, due out in August, 2012. She is also the author of the collections, HOUSE OF SKIN PRIZE-WINNING STORIES, and CANNIBAL NIGHTS, PACIFIC STORIES Volume II. Both have been Kindle bestsellers.

A graduate of the University of Hawaii, she has been a Bunting Fellow at Harvard University, a Visiting Writer at Wesleyan University, and a recipient of a National Endowment for the Arts grant. Her short stories have won numerous O. Henry Awards, Pushcart Prizes, and the Best American Short Story Award, 2000. Her novels and short stories have been translated into twenty-one languages. She lives on the Big island in Hawaii.

www.kianadavenport.com
www.kianadavenportdialogues.blogspot.com

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

21 of 21 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A haunting tale of a dark time in history, May 23, 2000

By 

Linda Linguvic (New York City) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (HALL OF FAME REVIEWER)    (TOP 500 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Song of the Exile (Hardcover)

To Kiana Davenport's credit, she didn't try to recreate her former book "Shark Dialogues" and moved on instead to break new ground.

The story starts during a time of innocence for Hawaii, shortly before WW2 and extends through the time of statehood in the 1950s. This is more than just the story of Hawaii, however. It is the story of a native Hawaiian jazz musician, Keo, who travels to New Orleans, Paris and then Shanghai, and finds himself in a brutal Japanese prison during the war. It is also the story of Sunny, his Korean-Hawaiian girlfriend, who finds herself a Japanese "comfort woman".

The author doesn't spare the reader the horrors of the war. Her searing words shed light on this dark time in history with an intensity that made me shudder with its graphic violence and unremitting horrors. Over and over the reader experiences the starvation, disease, pain and physical and mental deterioration of people who are forced to live in unspeakable conditions where human endurance under such circumstances is tested to the limit.

Woven throughout the plot is the story of their families, life in Hawaii, and the spirituality of the Hawaiian people. The reader also feels the cadence of Hawaii and the magic in her words as she describes Keo's music.

I would have liked this book to be lighter. I would have liked to smile rather than cringe at the unrelenting horror. I would have liked a happier ending. But that is not the story that the author wanted to tell. And so I accept it on its own terms. And, if nothing else, it makes me appreciate the good life I have.

I recommend this book but be forewarned. It will haunt your dreams and inspire nightmares.

13 of 13 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A Compelling Universal Tapestry, April 10, 2003

By 

"bruingray" (Los Angeles, California USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Song of the Exile (Ballantine Reader's Circle) (Paperback)

I will not recount the story; the other reviewers do it, and for my money, the story is marvelous. Like so many, I did not want this book to end, and rationed reading it for that reason. I cannot think of any other writer I have ever read who can capture in concrete, substantial, palpable images abstractions like jazz, or pain, or love, or wistfulness. The visuals her words sculpt are staggering. Hardly essential to an appreciation of this magnificent work, if you have lived in Hawaii, ever had an appreciation of either or both of its indigenous and diverse cultures, been entranced by music, felt the power and mystery of natural things, it will resonate with you on innumerable levels. You will learn a fair amount of Hawaiian along the way if you care to, and you should, as it is a beautiful and evocative and incredibly musical language. The book is more than poetry--it is, in many ways, a great mele. It speaks of essences, of life's value, its challenges, its losses, its pain. There are parts as profound and compact in that as any philosophy one could want (the small chapterlet recounting Malia's last visit with Pono may be the best piece of writing in that regard I have ever read). The political material through the book is, if you read closely, not polemical, but balanced if with a clear but hardly simplistic preference. And on a societal level, it is a magnificent paean to the power of women, especially their power over men, wanted or not, and the consequences, marvelous and horrific, of that power. If you are a woman, or you truly love them as I do, you will hold this book fiercely to your heart. Those who say Ms. Davenport embraced too much in too complex a way--with which I totally disagree--would probably say the same of Thomas Wolfe, whose prose at times hers resembles, several of whose works I number among my favorites in the language. I would rate this book higher than any I have reviewed on Amazon to date, and among the best novels I have ever read--and I have read thousands.

8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Hauntingly beautiful and tragic, October 5, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: Song of the Exile (Hardcover)

There are not many books that move me to tears, but this one did. Several days after finishing this book, I am still affected by it. It is basically a love story about two people born in the Hawaiin islands. The man (Keo) is destined to become a great jazz player, and he falls in love with a Korean-Hawaiin woman (Sunny) who is haunted by her own issues. They end up going to Europe to pursue Keo's jazz career and end up parting as Sunny begins a search for her long-lost sister. When she leaves, she does it without actually telling Keo she is going. He finds out by waking up and finding her gone with a note. Keo begins his life-long search for his one true love. But unbelievably they both end up as captives during World War II. But life does go on after that, and they are both released from a hell you would not believe. I do not want to give too much away but there is much joy and sadness in this book. Just look at the cover. See how hauntingly beautiful Sunny is and read her and Keo's story.