Winter Books 2008 / Dying in a Strange Land

Milton Murayama

University of Hawai’i Press, 2008
260 pages, $24.95

Milton Murayama completes his legendary tales of the Oyama family that began with All I Asking For Is My Body, Five Years on a Rock, and Plantation Boy. Dying in a Strange Land takes the familiar characters from World War II to the 1980s, bringing to a close a landmark achievement in local literature.

This conclusion follows the lives of mother Sawa and three of her children as they make their way through a culture in Hawai’i and the mainland, where good ole American values may be pushing out the old Japanese ways.

Murayama was never much of a prose stylist, eschewing setting and preferring to concentrate on dialogue and explanation to tell his story–no surprise he’s also a playwright as well as a novelist. He even says as much about his writing approach in one passage; someone tells one of the children, Kiyo, who is a writer: “You lose me when you imitate Hemingway. But your main weakness is plot. You need to tell a story… You have to hang your message and characters on a plot. Beginning writers try to prove they can write by polishing their prose, but style is actually less important than plot, character, and ideas. Dreiser wrote abominably but his plots, characters, and insights are what made him great.”

Of course, Murayama doesn’t write abominably, but his message, as usual, is always astute and eventually, nostalgically poignant. All in all, Dying in a Strange Land is a fitting conclusion to a classic saga.–Ryan Senaga

Ian MacMillan

BkMk Press, 2008
206 pages, $16.95

Our People: Stories is the latest short story collection from Ian MacMillan, the Hawai’i resident and UH–Manoa professor, who has published countless books and received just as many awards. This collection of tales doesn’t take place in Hawai’i though–the setting for many of his recent works. His focus this time is on the rural towns and farms of upstate New York where he grew up.

Because of the shared location, Our People feels just as much like a novel instead of a compilation; a portrait of connected lives that make up a very real community. Mostly told through the eyes of young people on the verge of adulthood and maturity; we see farmers, hunters and other stern men of few words. We are introduced to a world of hard manual labor and even harder abuse within their homes–both physical and emotional.

As usual, MacMillan brings his ear for dialogue and spare, trademark focus on character to make each story ring true. In one passage, he manages to describe a tree-cutting accident with a subtlety that makes the grotesque unexpectedly palatable, all while staying in the character of a young boy: “It looked as if his father were hiding behind the one he had cut, his cheek against the rough, pale bark, and when Danny went closer to see what was going on, the wind in the treetop pivoted the twenty-inch trunk a little, rolling into his father’s chest. He was dead, his mouth filled with something mushy and deep-red that had been forced up by the trunk crushing his torso against the other tree, and Danny stood there looking, his breath held, as whatever was in his mouth surged outward and then back with the top of the tree swinging in the wind.”

These elements of MacMillan’s style go on to make each denouement of this short collection both devastating and, ultimately, poignant. –R.S.

Sweet Life

Mia King
Berkly Trade, 2008, 352 pages, $14

Author Mia King, previously of Good Things, brings her particular brand of chick lit to Hawai’i with Sweet Life.

When her husband gets a job on the Big Island, New Yorker Marissa becomes a stay-at-home mommy and must learn to adjust to the decidedly slower pace of Waimea. “In the not-so-far distance, a cow mooed. Another joined in. Marissa knew that it would only be a matter of time before the whole herd of cattle behind their house would join in the chorus. After about an hour of bellowing off-key, they would fall off to sleep, one by one, snoring loudly as if they all had bad colds and were terribly congested.” Throw in marital problems and things really start to fall apart.

But in the end, Marissa learns to…you probably know the rest. Sweet Things isn’t particularly ground-breaking, and King’s prose style and story doesn’t bring anything unexpectedly innovative to the genre, but the novel is still frothily fun and very readable. The pages fly by. Fans of this literary genus, or those wanting to see an amiable view of the island of Hawai’i, will be charmed.

As a bonus, King throws in recipes, all based on Marissa’s whims in the storyline. Guava grilled steak and Spambalaya. ‘Ono! –R.S.

Native Men Remade: Gender and Nation in Contemporary Hawai’i

Ty P. Kawika Tengan
Duke University Press, 278 pages, $22.95

Some Hawaiians, particularly men, have felt that the continuing encroachment of the tourism industry has promoted a feminized idyllic atmosphere–a string of islands filled with beautiful hula girls wearing coconut bras and little else–while the postcard industry focuses on the fairer sex with the exception of the occasional beach boy, or perhaps the comically overweight tourist. But what about the men? Surely there’s more to them than blowing into conch shells and saying “mahalo,” when you tip the bartenders. After all, the football team is “The Warriors,” not “The Professional Greeters.” When did that change?

Author and associate professor of anthropology and ethnic studies at UH–Manoa Ty P. Kawika Tengan, focused on a group of men on Mari who decided to re-embrace their masculine identities. Forming a collective called the Hale Mua (The Men’s House), they focused on martial arts, temple rites, public lectures and cultural ceremonies. Told in both analytical and first-person style, the men of Hale Mua learn their heritage and a bit of missing dignity, while readers learn a painful history of colonization and forgotten identity. –R.S.

Sublime Beauty: Hawai’i’s Trees

Jim Wageman
Bishop Museum Press, 320 pages, $49.95

It’s usually a safe bet that when carting mainlanders around the island, someone is going to point at some tree or plant and ask what it’s called, since most seem to think we only have palm trees.

More often than not, we have no idea. Oh sure, sometimes we get lucky– “oh, that’s a breadfruit tree,” we say, while staring at the fruit on the ground instead of the actual tree. Autograph trees are easy to point out, but how many of us can identify a Philippine fig or a chinaberry?

That’s why Jim Wageman’s newest book on Hawaiian vegetation is a nature lover’s dream. Filled with the history of endemic, indigenous and introduced species, it contains full-color photographs on nearly every page, from the magnificent gold tree to the funky monkeypods. Brief descriptions and histories accompany each species, but it’s the photography that is the star of this collection.

Even if you’re not the kind to hug a tree, this book will still be useful for those who want to compile an enemies list. –Dean Carrico

Green Hawai’i: A Guide to a Sustainable and Energy Efficient Home

Kevin Whitton
Mutual Publishing, 114 pages, $16.95

It wasn’t so long ago that the term “greenwashing” was a derivative term, used by companies like ExxonMobil when they tried to reboot their image with a few commercials saying they built houses for wildlife displaced by their oil wells. It felt phony then, and it still feels phony now. That hasn’t stopped the green movement, however, and fortunately, people have realized they must take action beyond buying yet another G.E. product and that there’s more they can do than buy a fluorescent lightbulb.

And while it’s true that suggestion makes it into Honolulu Weekly contributing writer Kevin Whitton’s book, there are other tips and suggestions on how to cut costs, save energy and maybe–just maybe–justify sounding like a spaced-out, Apocalypse Now-era Dennis Hopper, screaming about how you’re “gonna save the whole freaking world, man!”

Suggestions go from the obvious (ceiling fans can keep you cool!), to the manically earth-conscious fanatic. But if that’s all there was to Green Hawai’i, we’d say it was nothing but another version of 50 Things You Can Do to Save the Earth with an inflated price tag. But it’s Whitton’s knowledge and passion that makes it a book worth picking up, and his ability to make even complicated renovations seem accessible to homeowners who are all thumbs, with none of them being green. More important, he’s able to detail why it’s important.–D.C.

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