Honolulu

I loved the story. A wonderful read told by a woman's point of view but written by a man. Well researched and organized. A page turner and fast read.

"Honolulu" is a rich, sweeping historical novel, narrated, in a straightforward, diary-like manner, by a Korean woman, born on the third day of the First Moon in the year of the Rooster, (the Western year 1897). Her parents were so disappointed she was not a male child, that they gave her the nickname "Regrettable," eventually shortened to "Regret," rather than allow her to bear the clan's name. Her's is a strict Confucian family, of country gentry, who believes that a woman's greatest duty is to produce a son. A female may never take charge or control and "should look on her husband as if he were Heaven itself, and never weary of thinking how she may yield to him." Born with an independent streak, she acquires a longing to learn to read, Regret does indeed become regrettable, at least to her father. Eventually she finds a woman, Evening Rose, who grants her wish and teaches her to read. Evening Rose renames her student Jin, or Gem in English. Desperate to get away from her oppressive lifestyle, Jin becomes a "picture bride," and travels to Hawaii in 1914 in search of a better life. Rather than finding the prosperous, handsome young bachelor, whose picture she saw in Korea, she resigns herself to marry the illiterate, embittered peasant, Mr. Noh, who awaits her at the dock. He, along with thousands of other Asians, was transported from his native Korea to labor in the pineapple and sugar fields. Noh, an alcoholic, gambles and beats his new wife brutally. Gone are her dreams of furthering her education, and of having a chance at a happy life. Ultimately she flees her home in one of Oahu's shantytowns and moves to Honolulu. Jin invites the reader to join her on her travels through the first half of the twentieth century in Hawaii, with all its drama, political factions, racism and remarkable characters. She introduces us to her friends, family, her colorful surroundings, and to the extraordinary history of the island on which she lives. She is a clever, resourceful woman who acclimates to her new life, and eventually does improve her situation considerably by using her own wits. Jin's story is a variation of the many stories and accomplishments of Asian immigrants - Chinese, Japanese, Filipinos, Koreans - and also native Hawaiians, who contributed so much to make the multicultural paradise which is today's Hawaii. The author juxtaposes the plight of these immigrants, their tremendous poverty and slave-like conditions to the lives of luxury and privilege which the Caucasian plantation owners' enjoy. Alan Brennert, with his meticulous research, brings history to life. His characters are extremely well developed and one cannot help but care about Jin, a wonderful and original protagonist. I highly recommend this novel, especially to fans of historical fiction. Jana Perskie Hawaii: A Novel

First came Jewish guilt, then Catholic guilt, and now with Honolulu by Alan Brennart we are exposed to Korean guilt (or at least one Korean woman's guilt). This is a bang up story of the trials and tribulations of Jin and her friends, all "picture brides" who came to Honolulu in the early 20th century to cultivate the land, and build new lives. This is a wonderful look at "paradise island" and the people who built it, long before it became the vacation destination of choice for millions of people. Jin's life in her small Korean village is dismal and offers her so little in the way of the education and opportunity she so desperately craves that she eagerly trades her life on this small island (a place where her value as a person is immediately evident to anyone who knows her true Korean name......REGRET) to travel to a new island called Hawaii as the fiancé of a man she has only seen in a photograph. We follow Jin through four dramatic decades as she attempts to build a better life for herself, her friends and her family while confronting the human plague of racism and bigotry, the deprivation of the Great Depression, as well as her personal struggle abiding by the "rules" of her own Korean culture. As with his first novel, Molokai, the author has captured the flavor of the era by deftly weaving actual characters and events into the lives of his fictional creations. In both books we experience the prejudice, sacrifice and heartbreak encountered by each books protagonist and the triumphs attained in what are ultimately sagas encompassing the celebration of life. For anyone who enjoys a little history mixed with great characters and an engrossing and imaginative storyline, author Alan Brennert is your A-ticket to an outstanding reading experience. After you have explored Brennert's Honolulu, be sure to visit his Molokai.

I can sum it up very quickly: This is a great book. I am always impressed when a male writer tells a story from a female point of view and makes it work. In "Honolulu", Alan Brennart has done his considerable research proud, and woven a fictional story in with historical events to create a seamless, very readable tale of a Korean woman of the late 19th and early 20th Centuries, and her many family connections, both by blood and friendship. Jin is a dutiful child of an upper-middle-class Korean family in a small city, who enters the world as an unwanted daughter named "Regret" (because she wasn't a son). Bright and inquisitive by nature, she longs to go to school like her brothers, but to do so would bring shame on her family. By subterfuge and her sympathizing aunt's aid, she finds someone who teaches her how to read; but when her father learns of it, the result is not what Jin had hoped for. She languishes, frustrated, within the confines of her family's home, with only a young sister-in-law-in-training for company. Her bid to break free comes when she learns of the "picture brides", essentially mail-order brides for Korean men in Hawaii. She overcomes her family's strenuous objections to her desire to become a "picture bride", and embarks upon her greatest adventure, in the company of four other Korean girls. This is a book that was difficult to put down, as I travelled with Jin through the Hawaii of early non-Hawaiian occupation. The governing of the Hawaiian nation had been connived away from the Hawaiian royal family not many years before; the power was in the hands of a handful of white overlords and the sugar- and pineapple-companies, the labour provided by immigrant, primarily Asian, laborers. Interwoven with the great story of Jin, and her personal struggle for betterment, Mr Brennert has delivered a history of Hawaii I never knew before, and shown it warts and all. Far from being the paradise it was rumored to be, it leaned heavily on the class system, the haves and the have-nots. The houses the laborers lived in, both on the plantations and the tenements in the towns, are shown in all the squalor the unfortunate "picture brides" had to deal with. And it also shows people determined to make their lives better, in the face of great adversity. The chick-lit device of our "picture brides" - now four in number - eventually creating a partnership, when they have all reunited later in the book, is more than a device; it is, apparently, a recognized association of the time. The author is not only well versed in Hawaii and Hawaiian history, but in a good deal of the Asian cultures who made up the greater part of Hawaiian immigrants. I felt a lot more informed when I finished reading it. And finishing reading it was the hard part. As I told a friend, it was a book that didn't go fast enough (makes you want to read ahead to find out what happens, but don't do it) while being a book I did not want to end. I was consumed by the story from the

Honolulu is a big story about a few Korean girls who become picture brides before the first world war to Korean men, who lived in far off Hawaii who want traditional Korean wives. The girls are sent pictures of the their prospective husbands and they send pictures of themselves to the men in Hawaii. After a horrible nine days at sea they land in Honolulu, only to find they have to be quarantined, because they may be diseased. After the quarantine the girls meet their husbands and find they have all been mislead. None of the men are as they were portrayed and this sets the tone for all the hardships which come to these women and they are many, but in the end they triumph over the adversities their new land throws at them. This is a book about people who are very hard to forget, from the main character Jin, who was named Regret by her parents in Korea, because girls are regrettable, to her picture bride friends, Jade Moon, Beauty and Wise Pearl. Even the men they marry are memorable, though some are not very likable and Jin's husband Mr. Hoh is abusive and awful, but this book isn't awful, it's wonderful, a wonderful story about paradise before it was called that.

In 1897, the year of the Rooster, in Korea, being born a girl was a bad thing for the parents, for like in other Asian countries, when a girl marries, she goes to live at the home of her husband, bringing no money in to help support her aging parents. Boys are preferred, girls are regrettable and the point of view character in Alan Brennert's novel is a girl, born at that time who is named Regret. A woman's place was truly in the home. After girlhood she is barely allowed out until she is married off. Regret and her friend Sunny long for a life which offers more than waiting hand and foot on a husband. They want a future. So behind their parent's backs they become picture brides to Koreans in Hawaii. Regret's father is furious, but he takes the 200 yen and lets his daughter go. However, when she gets to Honolulu, Regret finds things are not as they were promised. Her husband Mr. Noh is more than abusive and one night in a drunker rage he beats the pregnant Regret, killing her unborn child. Regret does the unthinkable and files for divorce. A hanging offense if a woman were to do that in Korea, but Honolulu is not Korea. Now Regret must make a life for herself on her own. And she does and her story is the story of Hawaii itself. Like in Arthur Golden's GEISHA Alen Brennert weaves fact and fiction together so well you'd believe the story was true if you didn't know better. His characters, especially the picture brides, live and breathe on the pages of this deeply moving story. You can't go wrong with this sweeping story about Regret and the city she fled to. You really, you can't.