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TALKING TO THE DEAD

STORIES

A first collection of interconnected stories set in the coastal village of Luhi, on the island of Maui, by a Japanese- American born and raised in Hawaii. Point of view alternates gracefully among villagers of different age, sex, and race— Japanese, Chinese, Caucasian, Hawaiian and bapa, or mixed. In the O. Henry-winning title story, a young Japanese woman, weak of stomach, insists upon apprenticing herself to Auntie Talking to the Dead, a kahuna who prepares bodies for burial, because ``...it was she who understood the wholeness of things—the significance of directions and colors.'' A prevailing theme here is the conflict between the ``wholeness'' of traditional lifestyle and so-called progress. In the powerful ``The Caves of Okinawa,'' a Japanese-American WW II veteran tries to give his son, on leave from Vietnam, a ticket to Canada but is thwarted by his wife, who, though she, too, lives for their son, cannot face the dishonor of desertion. The father's war trauma involved his participation in the dynamiting of caves in which Japanese soldiers and villagers hid. Then, in ``A Spell of Kona Weather,'' we learn that the son has been killed in Vietnam. ``Spell'' seems incomplete, however; and, similarly, ``Certainty''—in which a young pregnant woman learns from her elderly mother what really happened the day her father left—seems at once too obvious and troubled by half-raised questions. ``A Summer Waltz,'' two children playing dress-up, is no more than a fragment; but fully realized pieces include the lovely ``Anchorage'' (a daughter and her grandmother fight a losing battle against Alzheimer's in her father), and ``The Prayer Lady'' (an old man wants to leave with his dead son on the night of the bon dance, when the Japanese send the dead spirits back to the sea). With her unearthing of the heartbreak that lies beneath Hawaii's sunny landscape, Watanabe makes an uneven but promising debut.

Pub Date: Aug. 1, 1992

ISBN: 0-385-41887-6

Page Count: 144

Publisher: Doubleday

Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010

Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 1992

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MAGIC HOUR

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

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THE CATCHER IN THE RYE

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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