But with the family fractured, all of them struggle, and only some find redemption. Dean is a talented athlete, Noa and Kaui top students, and Augie and Malia manage to send all three to the mainland for college. In chapters narrated in turn by each member of the family, the siblings grow up, Dean and Kaui always feeling they are in their brother’s shadow, all of them balancing on the edge of poverty. Noa’s gift is a source of both wonder and cold hard cash, not to mention a baffling burden for a kid. It’s an echo of old legends that is reinforced a few years later when the boy heals an accident victim’s injuries (although his mother offers an origin story that suggests he was marked by the old gods from conception). Augie and Malia and their children-sons Dean and Nainoa and daughter Kaui-find their lives forever changed when, during a boat tour, little Noa falls overboard and is rescued by sharks, unharmed, as witnessed by a boatload of passengers. By turns lyrical and gritty, a moving family story focuses on the aftermath of miracles.įrom its opening pages, this debut novel juxtaposes the realities of life for a working-class Hawaiian family and the mysticism of the Native culture that shapes them, with surprising results.
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