What We Are

November 23, 2009
Malae's debut novel (after the collection Teach the Free Man
) is a high energy rant narrated by a half-Samoan/half-white drifter trying to survive in a world bent on marginalizing seekers of truth and integrity. Malae's antihero, Paul Tusifale, an ex-con and poet, wanders the dark corners of Silicon Valley like a corrosive Midas, ruining everything he comes in contact with, whether it's a civil rights march or a wealthy patron's poetry fellowship. Paul's voice is filled with anger and intelligence, and though his rants can come off preachy byproducts of his moral superiority and self-imposed martyrdom, when he backs away from smart-ass comments, superior glares, and Shakespearean quotes, his toughness transforms into a heartbreaking shield against futility, and he becomes a man with an idea on how to save us all. The novel's at its strongest during these moments, bearing a message that in the face of the madness of the modern world, the most important thing is to know yourself and to hold onto that at whatever cost. It's got rough patches, but the voice is gold.

February 1, 2010
Twenty-eight and a self-described half-breed Samoan American, Paul Tusifale is full of contradictions. Though intelligent and well read, he's an underachiever disinterested in most people's definition of success. He has a strong sense of injustice and wants to help those down on their luck, especially immigrants, or "paisas", around San Jos. But a violent encounter leaves him charged with a hate crime and behind bars. He is a poet and supposed lover of women, but he can't maintain a romantic or familial relationship. Paul decides to emerge from life on the fringes, get a job, and try to reconnect, but this is a challenge for someone who can't seem to learn how to walk away and accept that not every meeting will end in confrontation. VERDICT In this decidedly masculine novel by the author of the story collection "Teach the Free Man", the language is often explicit and the protagonist young, disaffected, and easily provoked. Readers who enjoy other contemporary fiction authors popular with men, such as Chuck Palahniuk and Bret Easton Ellis, should definitely try Malae. [See Prepub Alert, "LJ" 11/15/09: this novel won the San Francisco Foundation/Intersection for the Arts Joseph Henry Jackson Award for best novel in progress.Ed.]Shaunna Hunter, Hampden-Sydney Coll., VA

Copyright 2010 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

February 1, 2010
Twenty-eight-year-old Samoan American Paul Tusifale is an afakasi, a half one, estranged from both American and Polynesian cultures, in Silicon Valley. Hes highly intelligent and widely read, an English major in college and in prison. The novel follows him, first as an essentially homeless drifter, later as an employee in his uncles vast real-estate business, as he struggles to understand his American life. Malaes first novel, which won several regional awards even before it was completed, is purely character driven. The arc of the plotor lack of arcis driven by Pauls impulses and reactions to people and situations; those impulses range from gangsta-like, to peculiarly noble. What We Are is an autobiographical and deeply felt portrait of an outsider who is appalled by much of what he sees around him in a surreal Silicon Valley populated largely by grotesques. Malaes writing is challenging, filled with allusions and aphorisms that range from Nietzsche to Kerouac to crystal-meth zombies. It wont be for everyone, but Paul and his observations about contemporary culture are compelling.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2010, American Library Association.)