Sharks in the Time of Saviors

I learned about this novel from a colleague in Central Asia. Amazing.Washburn understands Hawaii and recent economic downturns related to shifts in agriculture. The author appreciates Hawaii' s land and origins, poetically relating to nature and people. Can't imagine why the author lives in Minnesota now.

Overall I really like this book. The writing was beautiful and poetic and has a way of seamlessly flowing between legend and the reality. The depiction of family bond and emotion feels so raw and real that I teared up several times reading this book. However I have to say that the plot leaves something to be desired. It feels like there's two part to the story: one of them is like a fantasy with miracles and superpowers and dead ancestors marching in the night, while another part is the modern everyday world we are all familiar with and its harsh realities. In my opinion these two parts don't connect very well--sometimes they even feel like separate stories. Also I feel like there are multiple tread in the story that wasn't really developed like what the gods actually want and what the main character's childhood nightmare was all about etc. The gods were pretty much absent in the later half of the story which makes it seems like they are not so important after all, but then in the end they came back to close the story, which feels kind of contrived. As I said the story is kinda fragmented. But overall it's still a good read. Will recommend.

It felt a bit like Zadie Smith’s ‘On Beauty’, but if destiny was etched so surely in the bones of a family. Washburn shifts between different points of view and it feels a lot like letting waves crash you unto shores only to suck you back into the current: sympathy then itching annoyance. Just when you were getting comfortable. It’s frustrating, the tug of war you feel when reading about love and selfishness as a spectator. Everything in this book feels alive, and every description of color pulls in images of feelings against your palms, the burn of sun on the barely there bridge of your nose and on your arms, and what I imagine my Decembers feel like if they ever manifested outside my head.   It’s also a story about coming home, a difficult thing to grapple with while reading through our country’s headlines in between acts. It’s about place in a system that’s apathetic, in a universe that won’t pause for your pain no matter how much you grovel that it does. It’s about Hawaii. It’s about a family and the gods that live among (inside?) them, the different names of gods we worship. And maybe inevitably it was about folding grief inside you, and letting it startle you. I clenched so hard unto its falling action, because the aftermath is probably the clearest thing. The whole time I let the ocean sway and toss me around, and I think I liked that a lot.

The cover of the book has markings like it was drug across a dirty floor...

Kawai Washburn, born and raised on the Big Island of Hawai’i, brings readers a powerful, grief-stricken debut novel. A local Hawaiian family, catapulted into poverty by the collapse of the sugarcane industry, is forced to examine the bonds of family, heritage, and survival. On a rare family vacation, Nainoa Flores falls overboard a cruise ship into the ocean. He’s rescued by none other than a group of sharks, his family perceives this as a sign of the old Hawaiian gods living through him, changing the future of their family forever.“It was what I believed at first: That you were made of the gods, that you would be a new legend, enough to change all the things that hurt in Hawai’i”.Washburn paints a vivid picture of Hawaiian culture from five distinct first-person perspectives, in both American English as well as Hawaiian Pidgin. I was transported back to the Islands walking the streets of Kalihi, an area not unfamiliar to me. I felt their pain and confusion when they left the Islands for a better future only to find it much more difficult than once imagined.The “magical realism” concepts embedded within this novel are beautiful portrayals of Hawaiian culture and beliefs. Ideas such as “amakua”, night marchers, and the spiritual connection to the land are all real beliefs Native Hawaiians once felt as truth. This is a perfect illustration of old Hawaiian myths and legends woven into modern day language of realities. My hope is, if you read it, you appreciate the beauty of Hawaii, its people, and its culture.

This incredible first novel from Washburn was not always an easy read. Reading about poverty and the people marginalized in such a beautiful place as Hawaii was difficult. But the insight into the culture; the richness of the land and those who live and die there; and the voices of Angie, Malia, Dean and Nainoa Flores pulling me back and forth from the islands to the mainland; made for a wondrous read. Highly recommended.

A rich & wonderful novel that will make you think and feel. This is no Hawaii of happy hula girls & luaus. It’s the land of local people working multiple jobs, trying to keep food on the table & stay connected to each other, the aina (the land) and the akua (the ancient gods.)Kind of amazing that this is the author’s first novel because the writing is so rich. Washburn’s descriptions are almost tactile; how things look, sound, smell and feel.Each of the 4 main narrators, two men and two women, have their own voices and perspectives & anyone with siblings will recognize the dynamics between Noa, Dean & Kaui. Characters challenge each other but their love & loyalty to each other is never in doubt.A good choice for book groups, for people who love good writing or who want to understand how tradition still matters in contemporary Pacific Islander culture.Also worth noting that the *audio* version of this book is a terrific example of how format can take a good book and make it even better. Exceptionally well done.

There were chapters where I flipped to the back cover to re-affirm that the author was male—-his words describing a mother’s feelings were so real. Just like Malia, I keep clothing from my deceased children just to hold and smell their “being”. We have visited Hawaii several times — never to the commercialized Oahu beaches. There is a sense of mystery and feeling of heavenly connection- a reverence- we feel as soon as we step on the soil. Yes, this is a good story but it is also a lesson in the earth’s need for respect. I am buying a copy for the library!!

A book club choice, this is not what I was expecting. The blurb talks about legends and miracles and I thought it might be more of a fable but it is very much a modern tale of a country with a mythical past which has become a tale of poverty and broken dreams.Initially, Noa, Dean and Kaui, particularly Noa show such promise, such immense potential you are waiting for something marvellous to happen. Instead something so unexpected and shocking happens, the book follows a completely different path to the one you think you are on and turns everything on it's head.Ther is a criticism of capitalism and putting so much store on money as the family do, and a suggestion with Kaui at the end that we listen to or return to the land. Noa turns to Dean '...maybe when the sharks pulled me up...it wasn't just me they wre saving....maybe it's about our whole famiy!' But h is not talking just about his family, he is talking about Hawaii as a family and a community who should listen to each othr and to the land. When Kaui does her hula dance to her mum's song of the land, this is them re-connecting. I loved it.The writing is beautiful, and you feel like you are riding on a wave or being carried along by a Hawaiian song on to the next page.

Kawai Strong Washburn writes in a way I have never experienced. His descriptive prose leaves others' in its wake. Hemingway's verbs are surpassed. This novel does more than tell a story ... it breathes Hawai'i in shared breath.

The book opens with sweaty intimacy, and unfiltered bodily awareness runs through the book, something that my personal level of reserve both wrestled with and found somewhat refreshing once I got used to it. This, along with frequent use of culturally specific terms and the characters' individual developing understanding of the myths of their land, serve to plunge the reader into a vivid earthy, direct relationship with the narrative. Emotions are expressed by the characters through their physical experiences, from vomit, to the feeling of ground slipping beneath you. I did definitely feel a level of immersion into their individual narratives. Equally, I saw different presentations of mental ill health in the characters, and felt this was handled with grit and honesty.The discussion of the book seems to me to be the question of "to what extent the cultural and spiritual structures people grow up in free and inspire, or trap and crush individuals?" Expectation lays destructively heavily on one character, whilst another feels devalued by the absence of expectation, their life courses both steered or distorted. All very thought provoking.However, somehow the end chapters left me underwhelmed. Kaui's return to work the land and finding some family salvation there seemed to me a little too tidy an end, and I found myself questioning "If I've been through all of this just to find out they end up farming on their island, has my journey been worth it?"

I loved the Hawaii in this. It made me listen to ukulele and check maps of the islands and watch YouTube’s of hula. The characters are real and greasy and I have never read anything similar, so this gets a triple star just for originality. I liked the different window into class and poverty and privilege. Thanks for taking me into that world for a bit.