Rating: ****
Tags: Fiction, General, Psychological Fiction, Psychological, Historical, Medical, Historical fiction, Adult, Leprosy - Patients, Kalaupapa (Hawaii), Women - Hawaii, Molokai (Hawaii), Hawaii, Medical Novels, Lang:en
Summary
This richly imagined novel, set in Hawai'i more than a
century ago, is an extraordinary epic of a little-known time
and place---and a deeply moving testament to the resiliency of
the human spirit. Rachel Kalama, a spirited seven-year-old Hawaiian girl,
dreams of visiting far-off lands like her father, a merchant
seaman. Then one day a rose-colored mark appears on her skin,
and those dreams are stolen from her. Taken from her home and
family, Rachel is sent to Kalaupapa, the quarantined leprosy
settlement on the island of Moloka'i. Here her life is supposed
to end---but instead she discovers it is only just
beginning. With a vibrant cast of vividly realized characters,
Moloka'i is the true-to-life chronicle of a people who
embraced life in the face of death. Such is the warmth, humor,
and compassion of this novel that "few readers will remain
unchanged by Rachel's story" (mostlyfiction.com). Compellingly original in its conceit, Brennert's sweeping
debut novel tracks the grim struggle of a Hawaiian woman who
contracts leprosy as a child in Honolulu during the 1890s and
is deported to the island of Moloka'i, where she grows to
adulthood at the quarantined settlement of Kalaupapa. Rachel
Kalama is the plucky, seven-year-old heroine whose family is
devastated when first her uncle Pono and then she develop
leprous sores and are quarantined with the disease. While
Rachel's symptoms remain mild during her youth, she watches
others her age dying from the disease in near total isolation
from family and friends. Rachel finds happiness when she meets
Kenji Utagawa, a fellow leprosy victim whose illness brings
shame on his Japanese family. After a tender courtship, Rachel
and Kenji marry and have a daughter, but the birth of their
healthy baby brings as much grief as joy, when they must give
her up for adoption to prevent infection. The couple cope with
the loss of their daughter and settle into a productive working
life until Kenji tries to stop a quarantined U.S. soldier from
beating up his girlfriend and is tragically killed in the
subsequent fight. The poignant concluding chapters portray
Rachel's final years after sulfa drugs are discovered as a
cure, leaving her free to abandon Moloka'i and seek out her
family and daughter. Brennert's compassion makes Rachel a
memorable character, and his smooth storytelling vividly brings
early 20th-century Hawaii to life. Leprosy may seem a macabre
subject, but Brennert transforms the material into a touching,
lovely account of a woman's journey as she rises above the
limitations of a devastating illness.
"A dazzling historical novel."--
The Washington Post
"
Moloka'i is a haunting story of tragedy in a Pacific
paradise."--Robert Morgan, author of
Gap Creek
"Alan Brennert draws on historical accounts of Kalaupapa and
weaves in traditional Hawaiian stories and customs....
Moloka'i is the story of people who had much taken
from them but also gained an unexpected new family and
community in the process."--
Chicago Tribune
"[An] absorbing novel...Brennert evokes the evolution
of--and hardships on--Moloka'i in engaging prose that conveys a
strong sense of place."--
National Geographic Traveler
"Moving and elegiac." --
Honolulu Star-Bulletin
"Compellingly original...Brennert's compassion makes Rachel
a memorable character, and his smooth storytelling vividly
brings early twentieth-century Hawai'i to life." --
Publishers Weekly (starred review)From Publishers Weekly
Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information, Inc.Review