Tom Wingo is an unemployed South Carolinian football coach whose internist wife is having an affair with a pompous cardiac man. Striking style, memorable characters, and a believably miraculous premise add up to a beautifully crafted first novel.Ī flabby, fervid melodrama of a high-strung Southern family from Conroy ( The Great Santini, The Lords of Discipline), whose penchant for overwriting once again obscures a genuine talent. Their stories go in unexpected directions, from hilarious to heartbreaking. I know this now because of you.” That ”you” is Noa, sweet and bighearted and wrecked by his unasked-for powers. He skillfully creates distinct voices for each of his narrators: resentful Dean, wisecracking Kaui, happy-go-lucky Augie, and Malia the true believer: “The kingdom of Hawai’i had long been broken-the hot rain forests and breathing green reefs crushed under the haole commerce of beach resorts, skyscrapers-and that was when the land had begun calling. Washburn’s prose is lush and inventive a native of Hawai’i, he portrays the islands and their people with insight and love. 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.

Kawai strong washburn