Father Damien, The Lands of: Kalaupapa, Molokai, Hawaii (Hardcover)

by James H. Brocker (Author)

Editorial Reviews

Review
Congratulations on The Lands of Father Damien. It was excellently done from cover to cover, photograph to photograph, and page to page! You have done a wonderful job throughout. Everything was beautiful. So much so that I doubt if there will ever be another book this good or even similar to it. I feel really honored, proud and privileged to have an autographed copy of your work. I know that most if not all the people at Kalaupapa were very impressed with what you have done. I believe that whenever they show or talk about your book nothing but good things can be said.

Again, my congratulations and mahalo a nui loa for a beautiful book portraying 'our stories', past and present, in words and photographs. I wish you much success with this book and your future endeavors and thank you for remembering 'us' that for years were shunned. -- A Hansen Disease patient in the Kalaupapa Settlement

Hawaii's 1998-Best Seller List -- Honolulu Advertiser-Honolulu, Hawaii

I have been here 56 years and The Lands of Father Damien is the best book, with the most true pictures, of Kalaupapa and Kalawao, I have ever seen. -- A Hansen Disease patient in the Kalaupapa Settlement

May I commend you on your extraordinary book-The Lands of Father Damien which was well researched and documented, as well as sensitively written. You have helped extraordinarily in the crystallizing of my memories and love for the lands of Father Damien and his people. -- Hawaii Judicial Judge and former Kalaupapa Settlement Administrator

The Lands of Father Damien has been executed with loving care and attention to detail and, under the author's tender touch, meticulously researched and composed. The same attention to detail is evident in the formatting-done to please serious readers as well as those who just want to savor the visual experience. -- The Molokai Dispatch

Product Description
This story takes place at an isolated peninsula located on a small island in the middle of the Pacific Ocean. It was on this insignificant splinter of land that people who were deathly ill and free of any crimes against nature or mankind were banished to spend their lives segregated from all civilized society. Forced from their families and stripped of dignity, these men, women and children came from all races, religions and walks of life.

Over the last 130 years there have been many strangers who came freely to these lonely shores and brought compassion, assistance and self-respect. Foremost among those was one whose destiny it was to achieve greatness by his humble efforts to relieve and ultimately share the pain of his fellow man. This Roman Catholic priest is known to the world as Father Joseph Damien deVeuster.

As the last of his people and the 20th Century fade into memory, the human tragedy that occurred here must be left as a reminder for all time of man's injustice to his own. The chronicle of suffering and loneliness within these pages belongs to each and every one of those exiled to the Kalaupapa Peninsula over the decades, and it is for them that this story is told....

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 134 pages
• Publisher: Booklines Hawaii Ltd; 1 edition (August 1, 1998)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0964219735
• ISBN-13: 978-0964219731
• Product Dimensions: 11.2 x 9.2 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.6 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #1,579,138 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Haunting., February 22, 2001

By	Mary Whipple (New England) - See all my reviews (TOP 50 REVIEWER)    (COMMUNITY FORUM 04)

Brocker's purpose in writing this book was to memorialize the people who "lived, died, and were for the most part forgotten on a little parcel of land in the middle of the Pacific Ocean." And such honor he bestows! The Hansen's disease (leprosy) which afflicted these people was a terrible, disfiguring, and ultimately fatal disease brought to Hawaii by immigrants, but the steps taken to eradicate its spread by isolating the victims must have been at least as devastating to the family-oriented Hawaiians as the disease itself.

It is difficult even to imagine a life and death worse than that which awaited the lepers in the Kalaupapa colony. Yet their lives surely would have been worse, had it not been for the efforts of Father Damien, the Belgian priest who himself fell victim to the disease sixteen years after he began his work in the colony. Historic photographs of Father Damien and his aides bring them to life and honor their efforts. Brocker's descriptions and photographs of the inhospitable, barren, and windswept peninsula of Kalaupapa itself (chosen because it was so isolated and so unsuited to any other kind of settlement), make real the magnitude of Father Damien's efforts. There were no trees, no grass, no fishing places--just wind, dampness, and pounding surf. Most haunting are his photographs and stories of the poor souls who were wrested from their families and sent to Kalaupapa to die apart from them.

Of these, the most affecting of all, of course, are the children's pictures. Photographs of very young girls, sitting primly in rows, as if they were posing for a 3rd grade school picture, little boys sitting on the ground, as if waiting for a picnic, and the one I can't forget, that of a group sitting on the porch outside the boys' home, with a "small boy, who is hardly taller than the benches on which the others sit." Perhaps he was tiny Beka, aged four, from Maui, who, according to records, was sent all alone to live the remaining three years of his life and to die in a harsh and foreign place without any of his loved ones around. With his photographs and text, Brocker does great honor to the lives of all these unfortunate souls. The rest of us can only be grateful that our own children, grandchildren, parents, aunts, uncles, and cousins do not have to suffer a similar fate to that of Beka, aged four. Mary Whipple

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Book reveals the spectacular journey of a humble farm boy., March 2, 1999

By A Customer

In The Lands of Father Damien, Author Brocker follows the footsteps of this remarkable man as he answered the ultimate plea for help by volunteering in 1873 to go to Kalawao on the Kalaupapa Peninsula where, King Kamehameha V had banished those among his people who were infected with the dreaded disease of leprosy, later identified as Hansen's Disease. It is an exceptional book that is easy to read, and offers up-to-date information about Blessed Father Damien. The volume would grace any library shelf and is a book to be shared with family, students, educators and group leaders.

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Captures Kalaupapa's heart and soul., February 9, 1999

By A Customer

Hawaii Catholic Herald

James Brocker has published a loving tribute to Blessed Damien de Veuster, the people to whom he gave his life, and the special place in which they lived and he served. The book tells the story of the place first cursed as a dumping ground for a people with a hideous disease; a place then given deliverance through the life and sacrifice of a Catholic missionary priest.

Brocker's text includes a geological and pre-leprosy history of Kalaupapa before, a description of Hansen's disease, and a chronology of significant dates relating to the settlement.

But it is his photos, with their generously detailed captions, that distinguish this book. They successfully capture a place whose starkness and beauty is preserved in its isolation.

The respect and love the author has for this land and its people are clearly evident in this book.

The Lands of Father Damien is a worthy memorial to the living and dead of Kalawao and Kalaupapa.