"Sharks in the Time of Saviors" by Kawai Strong Washburn (2020)

 **A beautiful and poignant portrayal of Hawai'i, both modern and carrying the weight of history and tradition**

Hawai'i is, in many ways, a contradiction.  Obviously, most people picture the resorts, beaches, and general "paradise" nature of it all.  And don't get me wrong, all of that is true.  My mother lived in Hawai'i for years, and I remember one time I visited her and I called to her one morning to say that there was a rainbow over the ocean.  She replied dismissively from the other side of the house, "yeah, yeah, there's a rainbow every day."  Hawai'i is a paradise, no question

Stunning nature, rich culture, great food, some of the best research in marine biology and geology and astronomy in the country . . . there's so much about Hawai'i that is remarkable and worth celebrating

But there is also the other side of Hawai'i, the side that tourists obviously never see.  Homelessness and drug use above the national average.  A cost of living that is terrifying, forcing many children who would love to stay on the island to move to the mainland simply because they can't afford it.  CNBC's annual business competitiveness ranking generally puts Hawai'i at 50th out of 50.  The affects of climate change are felt every day, and everyone knows they will only get worse.  Not to mention the fact that Hawai'i has so little political power, and many of the problems it faces are so unique that they fail to get addressed at the Federal level.  And beyond those measurable tragedies, there is the deeply immeasurable cultural conflict that exists as a part of everyday life for the people of Hawai'i

The traditions of Hawai'i go back millennia, and it's so much more than the daily hula dances at Ala Moana Shopping Center.  Ceremonies and beliefs and religion and spirituality that exists nowhere else in the world.  And what managed to survive US colonial administration are falling prey to the simple but inexorable passage of time.  Traditions not kept alive are lost

So.  That's what Kawai Strong Washburn wanted to write about in "Sharks in the Time of Saviors"

Set in modern Hawaii, following the the trials of a Hawaiian family, and steeped deeply in the gods of Hawaii, this book is a passage into the lives of a community vibrant and vivid and real, about whom I don't imagine many people ever think.  And as we look at the choices this family makes, we think about them as larger metaphors for the choices an entire people have made and continue to make, a smaller nation that gave up its freedom and joined a larger one:

Mom nods. “It’s always like that.”

“What do you mean?” I ask. 

“Whenever I’ve made a choice in my life, a real choice…” She leans back from my head. Touches my shoulder just for a second. “I can always feel the change, after I choose. The better versions of myself, moving just out of reach.” 

It’s exactly what I think. So there’s nothing to say. I saw at my nose with my forearm. Palm more tears from my eyes. 

“I’m always losing better versions of myself,” she says. “I don’t know. You just have to keep trying.”

As Washburn's first (and to date, only) novel, it's a touch unpolished.  The pacing is off in some places, some of the supporting characters lack depth, but whatever.  This book describes the struggles of a people whose heritage has been erased, living on an island with low wages and a high cost of living, thought of only as a tourist destination by the rest of the world.  These are the things that "Lilo and Stitch" left out

Although yes, there are also jokes about how the son that moved to the mainland, "probably showers in the morning now, don't you?"

I loved this book because of how it seeks to strip away the romanticism of the island and show both the hidden pain but also the unknown beauty of this culture.  This book is simultaneously a modern fantasy story about old gods walking the new world . . . and also simply the story of the struggles of a people that have been forgotten by most of the mainland.  It's not a perfect book, but it's a powerful book

I try not to do this too often with these reviews, but I have to simply include the entire passage below.  Give it a read, give it some thought.  If it speaks to you, I recommend this book highly:

If a god is a thing that has absolute power over us, then in this world there are many. There are gods that we choose and gods that we can’t avoid; there are gods that we pray to and gods that prey on us; there are dreams that become gods and pasts that become gods and nightmares that do, as well. As I age I learn that there are more gods than I’ll ever know, and yet I have to watch for all of them, or else they can use me or I can lose them without even realizing it.

Take money: my grandmother’s grandmother’s grandmother, Kānaka Maoli that she was, had no use for paper printed with the silhouette of some faraway haole man. It gave nothing. What was needed was food from the earth, housing from the earth, medicine from the earth, a sense of one’s place in the system. What was provided and what had to be cultivated. But ships from far ports carried a new god in their bellies, a god who blew a breath of weeping blisters and fevers that torched whole generations, a god whose fingers were shaped like rifles and whose voice sounded like treaties waiting to be broken. And money was the name of that god, and it was the sort of god that preyed on you, made demands and laid its hands on you with such force as to make the Old Testament piss its pants. 

We were made, eventually, to pray to it, whether we wanted to or not. Your father and I still pray to it now.

Take language. ‘Ōlelo Hawai‘i, which was not written, only passed from one mouth to the next, less letters than the English that soon roared over it, and yet it contained more mana of Hawai‘i than anything that foreign tongue could twist itself into. What do you do when pono, a healing word, a power word—a word that is emotions and relationships and objects and the past and the present and the future, a thousand prayers all at once, worth eighty-three of the words from the English (righteousness, morality, prosperity, excellence, assets, carefulness, resources, fortune, necessity, hope, and on and on)—is outlawed? When our language, ‘Ōlelo Hawai‘i, was outlawed, so our gods went, so prayers went, so ideas went, so the island went.

This book is a story of a place and a people.  One that most of have seen from the outside, but never considered from the inside

I loved this book

How many nights did we make like that? How long was I stupid enough to believe we were indestructible? But that’s the problem with the present, it’s never the thing you’re holding, only the thing you’re watching, later, from a distance so great the memory might as well be a spill of stars outside a window at twilight.