Book Review - Elizabeth Hand's Hokuloa Road
Hokuloa Road by Elizabeth Hand
Published by: Mulholland Books
Publication Date: July 19th, 2022
Format: Hardcover, 400 Pages
Rating: ★
To Buy
Grady Kendall's life imploded. But then so has so many others. The pandemic came and everything ground to a halt, including the construction on all the wealthy vacation homes in Maine where he worked as a carpenter. The first stimulus check went to back rent and two overdue truck payments. So he moved back in with his mother. Though the memories at home aren't the kind you want to dwell on, his father's suicide, his brother's addictions, and so much loss. Which is why he likes his Pabst. And then an opportunity lands in his lap he can't pass up. An eccentric billionaire is looking for a caretaker for his home in Hawai'i. Grady has always loved the wilderness and has felt that circumstances have limited his chances to see the world so he applies. Within days all the paperwork has been sorted and he is flying to his new home on Hokuloa Road. Another of Wes Minton's employee's, Dalita, picks him up from the airport and drives him out to the house. The compound appears wild but on closer inspection he sees it's just as meticulously designed as the empty beach resorts he saw from the plane, it's just in need of some care, and that's what Grady is here to give. His work isn't too onerous and he has his own cottage. His boss is often at the sight of his proposed hotel on the remote Hokuloa Peninsula, which he now uses for conservation work, particularly with rare birds. In fact the most important of Grady's tasks is tending an aviary of rare birds on the second floor of Wes's house. Some days it feels like these birds are his only companions. Which leads him to feel the loneliness and menace of his isolated surroundings. Sure, it's beautiful, but it's otherworldly too. And then he learns about the disappearances. There's a well-known surfer who's just gone, as well as a girl, Jessie, whom he met on the plane. Because of his personal connection to Jessie, Grady feels like he should ask questions. But Wes hired him because he's a stranger, an outsider, and will not ask questions. The island is filled with the absences left by the vanished. It's only when a tourist like Jessie arrives that anyone cares. But despite being the wrong guy for every possible reason, perhaps he is the tool at hand to break this mystery wide open?
I hated this book so much I don't know if I'll be able to coherently express my rage. I mean, just the cavalier attitude to Covid and declaring people "safe" without knowing where they've been or what they've been up to enraged me. And keep in mind this is set at the very beginning of the pandemic, so tests were impossible to find and there was no vaccine! But that was just the first of many many rage inducing incidences and I have many issues stemming from the new subgenre of pandemic literature which I won't go into here. So much of this book is rooted in the lore and people of Hawai'i. Dalita speaks Hawaiian Pidgin, alternately called Hawai'i Creole English. It's a very stilted language. I'm sure Hand did this to add to the authenticity of the book. She says she went to great effort to learn the dialect when she went to Hawai'i. But as much as I believe in her good intentions it comes across as a privileged white woman travelling to a foreign land and setting herself up to be the mouthpiece of these people. It doesn't sit right with me. I kept asking myself, is she the right person to tell this story? Well, given my next complaint, yes, but that then brings me to the fact that if this book wanted to be authentic maybe a native speaker or someone whose life this is should have been telling this story. And I am against censorship, anyone can write any story they want, but that doesn't make it feel right. Because this book exudes white privilege and Hand is nothing but a haole! Grady and his adventures are nothing but the biggest most nauseating example of white savior complex I have read in years. I mean, it's so horrid that if I had to summarize the book in one word it would be cringe. I physically recoiled from this book. At one point a character accosts Grady saying "You think you're the fucking chosen one." And that is the book, he IS the chosen one. A drunk, messed up chosen one, but it's the outsider status of a white man that's the problem. He comes in and Dalita is all, yeah, people disappear all the time, but no one's ever going to take the time to figure it out. Well their new white savior will! Because that's what he's here to do, make everything right for the natives. How could Hand, whose previous works I loved for their understanding and subtleties write this tone-deaf tome!?! That's the real mystery.
Post a Comment