A sharp, funny, and fast-paced (occasionally manic) first novel that takes us backstage in paradise—into the very heart and soul (and guts) of a working-class Japanese-American family on the island of Hawaii. The narrator is young Lovey Nariyoshi, and, as she herself might tell you, she one big haole wannabe. That's how Lovey talks, and that's how everybody she knows talks—except for haole teachers like Mr. Harvey who try, to no avail, to educate the Japanese- American kids out of saying dis and dat and wuz and cuz. Lovey's family is poorer than most—the book's title refers to her father's many schemes to find meat, including roadkill, to put on the family table. And Lovey's constant quest, once she realizes she can never have haole ringlets like Shirley Temple, is at least to have clothes that don't look laughably homemade. Along with best friend Jerome and, occasionally, her younger sister Calhoun, Lovey embarks on a series of misadventures all in the cause of a better life. These include such events as selling stolen marijuana cigarettes to finance the purchase of new Barbie and Ken dolls; getting caught up in the religious zeal of a crazed teacher who sees the devil behind every door; and spying on Jerome's brother in the throes of passion with his girlfriend. For much of the novel—too much of the novel- -these mishaps read like a series of hilarious but disjointed episodes. It's not until the third and final section that events and people are linked into a compelling narrative and we really begin to understand what Yamanaka, a Pushcart Prizewinning poet and short-story writer, is capable of. And though it's a risky undertaking to write a whole novel in dialect, it works here on the whole, the speech patterns resonating like poetry. Too fragmented at the start, but a finish that's more luminous than a Hawaiian sunset. (Author tour)
Pub Date: Jan. 1, 1996
ISBN: 0-374-29020-2
Page Count: 240
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 1995
Wacky plot keeps the pages turning and enduring schmaltzy romantic sequences.
Sisters work together to solve a child-abandonment case.
Ellie and Julia Cates have never been close. Julia is shy and brainy; Ellie gets by on charm and looks. Their differences must be tossed aside when a traumatized young girl wanders in from the forest into their hometown in Washington. The sisters’ professional skills are put to the test. Julia is a world-renowned child psychologist who has lost her edge. She is reeling from a case that went publicly sour. Though she was cleared of all wrongdoing, Julia’s name was tarnished, forcing her to shutter her Beverly Hills practice. Ellie Barton is the local police chief in Rain Valley, who’s never faced a tougher case. This is her chance to prove she is more than just a fading homecoming queen, but a scarcity of clues and a reluctant victim make locating the girl’s parents nearly impossible. Ellie places an SOS call to her sister; she needs an expert to rehabilitate this wild-child who has been living outside of civilization for years. Confronted with her professional demons, Julia once again has the opportunity to display her talents and salvage her reputation. Hannah (The Things We Do for Love, 2004, etc.) is at her best when writing from the girl’s perspective. The feral wolf-child keeps the reader interested long after the other, transparent characters have grown tiresome. Hannah’s torturously over-written romance passages are stale, but there are surprises in store as the sisters set about unearthing Alice’s past and creating a home for her.
Wacky plot keeps the pages turning and enduring schmaltzy romantic sequences.Pub Date: March 1, 2006
ISBN: 0-345-46752-3
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Ballantine
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2005
A strict report, worthy of sympathy.
A violent surfacing of adolescence (which has little in common with Tarkington's earlier, broadly comic, Seventeen) has a compulsive impact.
"Nobody big except me" is the dream world of Holden Caulfield and his first person story is down to the basic, drab English of the pre-collegiate. For Holden is now being bounced from fancy prep, and, after a vicious evening with hall- and roommates, heads for New York to try to keep his latest failure from his parents. He tries to have a wild evening (all he does is pay the check), is terrorized by the hotel elevator man and his on-call whore, has a date with a girl he likes—and hates, sees his 10 year old sister, Phoebe. He also visits a sympathetic English teacher after trying on a drunken session, and when he keeps his date with Phoebe, who turns up with her suitcase to join him on his flight, he heads home to a hospital siege. This is tender and true, and impossible, in its picture of the old hells of young boys, the lonesomeness and tentative attempts to be mature and secure, the awful block between youth and being grown-up, the fright and sickness that humans and their behavior cause the challenging, the dramatization of the big bang. It is a sorry little worm's view of the off-beat of adult pressure, of contemporary strictures and conformity, of sentiment….
A strict report, worthy of sympathy.Pub Date: June 15, 1951
ISBN: 0316769177
Page Count: -
Publisher: Little, Brown
Review Posted Online: Nov. 2, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 1951
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