Sharks in the Time of Saviors

December 2, 2019
Washburn’s standout debut provides a vivid portrait of Hawaiian identity, mythology, and diaspora. This family chronicle opens in 1995 Honok’a as the seven-year-old Nainoa Flores falls from a ship, only to be rescued and returned to his parents by sharks. This seminal event in the lives of the Filipino-Hawaiian Flores family marks Nainoa for life as the “miracle boy,” even as his parents struggle to turn a profit on their sugarcane plantation. As things become more desperate, Nainoa and his violent older brother, Dean, and adventuresome younger sister, Kaui, leave the island to seek their fortunes on the mainland. Dean embarks on a promising career as a basketball player in Spokane only to wind up in trouble with the law, while Kaui discovers her sexuality in San Diego, and Nainoa becomes an EMT in Portland, Ore. Poised halfway between their cultural upbringing and hopes for the future, the family is riven by a horrific tragedy that will test them to the breaking point. Though perhaps overlong, Washburn’s debut is a unique and spirited depiction of the 50th state and its children.

Jolene Kim, Kaleo Griffith, G.K. Bowes, and Tui Asau take turns narrating this family saga cloaked in magical realism. Because the author chose to write alternating chapters in the first-person point of view and each chapter features a character with a distinct style, the narrators have a lot of work to do. This cast delivers. They portray members of a Hawaiian family, each with a particular accent and intonation. Not only do the narrators have to craft the featured character's speech pattern, they also have to match the speaking patterns of those the character interacts with. The ensemble does a magnificent job, rooting this novel in reality just enough that listeners will completely believe the magic. A.R.F. � AudioFile 2020, Portland, Maine