Sugar: A Hawaiian Novel

Rating:
Summary: A Triumph of Will
Review: Lili Kaleo endures a horrendous litany of hardships, any one of which could be enough to devastate an individual beyond recovery. However, like a Phoenix, Lili manages to rise from the ashes of trial and tribulation, finding the strength to carry on -- for herself, for her siblings, for her people. In this story, Dan O'Connor maintains an intricate storyline that weaves in and out of Lili's life as child, adolescent, and adult. Like a master craftsman, he unveils each event with perfect timing, maximizing dramatic effect. Also impressive is the level of authenticity which he is able to achieve. The setting is real. The characters are real. The emotions and events are real. Despite a very matter-of-fact tone, the reader is drawn into some very bitter and dark circumstances, and is forced to feel the full gravity of the issue at hand. I enjoyed Dan's story immensely, and would recommend it to anyone interested in Hawaiian culture or in the tale of a woman's will to survive against incredible odds. I'm looking forward to the sequel.

Rating:
Summary: Close But Not Quite There
Review: This is a difficult book to review objectively. Even though it tackles some very difficult subjects, it's not a "downer" book. It's very well written, with an engaging style that holds your interest. Kalili`i Kaleo ("Sugar") grows up in a very difficult social and cultural environment on Kaua`i. One that I suspect is not uncommon to this day. Her life starts out with poverty, domestic violence and child abuse, which of course leads right into being attracted to "no-good" men. Despite all of those obstacles, she becomes elected as the mayor of Kaua`i. In her role as mayor, she takes on some politically powerful adversaries. That, combined with the her husband's greed, lands her in the middle of a very public bribery trial that threatens to take away both her political career and her young son. O'Connor switches between the courtroom drama and flashbacks as a way to fill the reader in on the story of the rest of her life. There is enough plausible action and suspense thrown in to get it into the "hard to put down" category (like blowing up a water aqueduct to a sugar plantation, for example).

There a few things that make this novel a bit less that it could have been. O'Connor is an outsider when it comes to the culture he's writing about. The cover says "A Hawaiian Novel," but it's not - it's a novel ABOUT Hawai`i and I couldn't ever quite shake that feeling while I was reading it. O'Connor throws in some pidgin and some Hawaiian, but not quite enough to make it really work. Each chapter begins with a quotation from a 1930's book about the sugar industry ("King Cane" by John Vandercook), but the quotations don't connect with the contents of the chapters that I can see. I think they are distracting. And there is a really glaring editing error on the back cover. The state motto is written in large lettering but the word "pono" is misspelled "puno."

Given those flaws, it's still a good book; it's just not quite what it claims to be. If you want to learn about Hawaiian culture, read books written by Hawaiians (and check out HawaiiBooks.com, and Amazon affilliate.)