In 1913, three young sisters suffering from tuberculosis are sent for treatment to a Christian orphanage in the Kalihi Valley in Hawaii. Only the oldest, Anah, survives to grow up, marry and have children of her own, but all her life she is haunted by the loss of her family, and the dead seem determined to make her life miserable.
This is one of the most beautiful and poetic books I’ve ever read but the beauty is blanketed so heavily by sadness and a sense of resignation in the face of inevitable seeming failures that it is hard to fully appreciate it. Born into a poor family that lives in a camp for plantation workers, Anah’s Portuguese father is an abusive drunkard, while her Japanese mother is utterly helpless in protecting herself or her children from him. Because she is half-Asian, she has to face racist remarks all her life and the obligatory misogyny is never far away either. In the orphanage, one of the nuns is a sadist, and later on, when Anah lives with her husband’s family, one of the aunt’s only joy in life is to put her down. These hardships are offset by only few bright spots like her beloved brother, a grandfather by choice, an understanding nun, and later her husband and her children, although even those relationships bring a lot of hardship with them.
Further dragging Anah down are the ghosts of her sisters and a boy that also died at the orphanage. These spirits curse her and hurt her, calling her a liar and fanning the guilt she feels for surviving. There are a lot of thoughts on mysticism, faith, and religion packed into the book, as the different belief systems of the multicultural society on the island coexist with each other. The benefits of these religious beliefs to Anah are never quite clear; one could almost imagine that they are a comfort to her at various times but only if comfort means that they are just the only thing left to cling to because everything else is lost. What Anah really needs is a family and a home. After the loss of the family she was born into she is adrift; only after she finds a new one can any kind of healing even be attempted.
Overall, the story is incredibly well crafted but not an easy read by far, and not only due to the subject matter. Owing to the aforementioned mix of nationalities in the valley and true to the time period the book is set in, the characters speak Hawaiian Pidgin which is interspersed with words from different languages, mainly Japanese, Portuguese, and Hawaiian. This makes it kind of hard to get into the story in the beginning, as not every word’s or even sentence’s meaning can be worked out through context alone. However, after a few chapters I was used to it and it didn’t bother me anymore. Hawaiian history is not something I know a lot about either so this was an enlightening read from an educational viewpoint as well which I always enjoy.
Whether the curse under which Anah finds herself is a spiritual problem or just a psychological manifestation called forth by survivor’s guilt is pretty much up to the interpretation of the reader but either explanation does not take anything away from the astounding impressiveness and the profound impact of the story. Well worth the read, but, in light of the frequently overwhelming bleakness, only at your own peril.