Bird of Another Heaven

December 18, 2006
After his fictional treatment of the Donner Party (Snow Mountain Passage
), Houston's superb ninth novel details the life of Sheridan "Dan" Brody, a young Northern California radio host intent on discovering the origins of his shrouded family heritage. Dan's curiosity is sparked after seeing, for the first time, his birth certificate, which lists the name of a father he never knew. Not long after, Rosa Wadell calls Dan's radio show and reveals herself to be the grandmother he never knew about. Through Rosa's stories and her mother's diaries, a clearer picture of Dan's family history emerges. Houston interweaves Dan's life in mid-1980s San Francisco with the Hawaiian tribal legacy of his great-grandmother, Nani Keala ("Nancy Callahan"), a pioneer who learned the Hawaiian ways of life and took her place at the side of Hawaii's last king, David Kalakaua. The two story lines converge as Dan learns of and begins to hunt for a secret audio recording made at San Francisco's Palace Hotel during King Kalakaua's final days. Though it gets off to a slow start, Houston builds momentum as the novel's scope widens, and the historical detail is mesmerizing.

January 1, 2007
After opening with the death of the last king of Hawaii, this well-crafted and thoughtful work of historical fiction weaves its way back to the first scene, with the narratives of various charactersespecially Nani Keala and her great grandson, Sheridan Brodymoving through time. As the book unfolds, the history of a dying monarchy is juxtaposed to events in Nani's life, and as her great grandson learns about the past, we see both its effects on him and the very real consequences for U.S. power over Hawaii. Although the dialog is sometimes strained, and character reactions often play to the overdramatic rather than the subtle, these are minor irritants in a strong and compelling read that fills a gap in the historical fiction of Hawaii. From the author of "Continental Drift"; recommended for public and academic library collections.Shalini Miskelly, Highline Community Coll. Lib., Des Moines, WA

Copyright 2007 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

Starred review from February 15, 2007
This carefully developed novel, which pulls readers inexorably into its rich recesses, rests on a theme not uncommon in contemporary fiction: the rather primal urge to know our personal heritage, to understand our forebears as individuals. The specific symbol of that pursuit, in this case, is a royal artifact from the collapsing years of the Hawaiian kingdom before its annexation by the U.S. Like a bolt from the blue, a San Francisco-area radio-show host receives a call from a woman insisting she is his grandmother. Primarily through a multivolume diary kept by her mother, two worlds, two cultures open up to his astonished and absorbent awareness: the final years of the reign of Hawaiian king David Kalakau and a California Indian tribe's shrinking as the nineteenth century comes to a close. Houston, author of, among other well-received novels, " Snow Mountain Passage" (2001), uses a technique currently popular in historical fiction: alternating his narrative between a past and present period of time, which serves a twofold purpose--not only ushering readers into a vivid visitation to the past but also drawing meaningful parallels between historical and present-day events, to gain for his readers an appreciation of the past's influence on choices individuals make " these" days.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2007, American Library Association.)