As colorful and interesting as the city itself

It’s been unusually cold in north Texas this year. Besides curling up under a blanket to watch House, M.D. or Battlestar Galactica, reading about tropical Hawai’i has also proved to be a good way to keep the wintry chill at bay. While outside it’s windy and blustry, Ithis book transported me thousands of miles away to a warm, sunny island and all the joys and sorrows one life can hold.  

Genre: novel, historical fiction

Plot: As a little girl in rural Korea, Regret felt constricted by the Confucian system that surrounded her, telling her to leave academic study to her brothers while she focused on gaining marital skills and a husband. She yearned for a better life, such as that of a picture bride sent to Hawaii to marry a Korean farmer. Regret bravely leaves her family and home behind and sets off for Hawaii, land of prosperity and the rich husband she dreams is waiting for her. Although she is met with disappointment and heartache, nevertheless she transforms herself from Regret–isolated and frustrated–to Jin, a gifted seamstress who will choose her husband out of love and not duty, make friends, witness the race riots that shook Hawaii to its core at the early 20th century, and ultimately experience all that life can offer in her new home.

Structure: The first-person narrative is organized into 19 chapters which are loosely chronological (that is, they do not cover a set span of years), followed by an epilogue set in 1957 at her 60th birthday. The epilogue was especially well done; it reminded me of the end of those movies where the frame pauses and gives a short explanation of what eventually happened to each character, giving a definite sense of closure.

Execution: I was impressed with Brennert’s first novel Moloka’i because of its emotional depth and historical breadth. This second novel is no less impressive in these regards than the first; unlike say Dickens or Doestoevsky, it truly felt like the story of a life, as if the author managed to condense the passing of time into pages, while still producing an engaging, relatively short read (about 350 pages). 

I also really enjoyed the uniqueness of the subject matter. While there are plenty of novels about World War II or the French Revolution, Brennert is the only novelist I know who has covered Hawaii from the turn of the 20th century through the 1950s. Plus, he also managed to weave in Korean culture and history, which was also elucidating since Korea tends to be ignored in literary circles.

Brennert also got high marks in my book for tying in such complex themes into such a simple narrative idea; history, politics, literature, film,  sociology, law, linguistics, even sewing and seamstress terminology found its way here, mimicing the complexities of real life in which all these and many more ideas are constantly in play as we go about our lives.  In short, it was a highly entertaining, deeply moving story set against a unique moment in history, the likes of which historical fiction writers would do well to imitate.

Theme:  Hawaii, Korea, immigrant life, history, politics, sewing, picture brides

Read this if you want to break free of the historical novel trenches and read about something new

4 out of 5 stars

Other works:
Moloka’i
Kindred Spirits
Time and Chance

If you liked this, you might also like:
Yoshiko Uchida’s Picture Bride, a similar story of a Japanese woman and her family in World War II California
David Guterson’s phenomenal Snow Falling on Cedars, which also deals with Asian-racism in World War II Seattle