Behold the Many

“Yamanaka excels in the pidgin-style English spoken by these immigrant families, in lyrical descriptions of the Hawaiian setting, and in creating a mystical world filled with tortured ghosts seeking redress and peace . . . Within this patently different type of ‘love’ story, Yamanaka has captured the essence of a little recognized group of Hawaiian residents who work this lush, beautiful land at a phenomenal cost.”—Viviane Crystal, Historical Novels Review

"In this superb seventh novel from Yamanaka, the ghosts of children curse the living, and a young woman finds salvation in early-20th-century Hawaii. Anah Medeiros finds some consolation in being sent to St. Joseph's to recover from tuberculosis—she can comfort her young sisters Leah and Aki, already there. And at least away from home, she'll be safe from her brute of a father, a Portuguese laborer who molests her on drunken mornings, and she can escape her Japanese mother's decline into numb sorrow. Abandoned at St. Joseph's, the girls are beaten and berated by the nuns who deem them unclean half-breeds. Only Leah has some joy, in the form of ghostly Seth, a dairyman's son who died tree-climbing on the grounds. Soon, though, Leah dies, as does fierce Aki, leaving Anah alone, but not alone, as she is now haunted by a crying Leah, a violent, naked Aki, a silent Seth and the legions of children who have died at St. Joseph's, begging Anah to take them home, feed their hunger, find their mothers. Yamanaka creates a heartbreaking portrait of these ghost children . . . Anah finds a friend in Sister Mary Deborah, who teaches her everything about beekeeping, and Anah finds love in Ezroh Soares, Seth's brother. When she turns 18, Ezroh steals her away from St. Joseph's and into marriage, but Seth puts a curse on Anah that all her children will be girls and monsters. Yamanaka's magical story of Anah is also an uncompromising depiction of a hard immigrant life in Hawaii, of Chinese opium dens and Japanese laborers and Portuguese cowboys and whites eager to tame the lot of them. Finally, though Anah becomes prosperous in the beekeeping business, Seth's curse holds sway and Anah must sacrifice what she loves best so the crying ghost children can find their way home to God. Beautifully tragic, this should garner Yamanaka the wider attention she deserves."—Kirkus Reviews (starred review)

 

"Taking up her familiar themes-family, guilt, abandonment and the curses invoked by the dead on the living-Yamanaka's latest novel builds nicely on her previous, Father of the Four Passages. In 1913, sisters Anah, Aki and Leah are sent to an orphanage on the Hawaiian island of Oahu when they fall ill with tuberculosis . . . Anah promises her sisters that their mother and brother, Charles, will rescue them from the orphanage, but she is wrong: Leah and Aki die. As vengeful ghosts, Anah's sisters taunt and torture her for surviving and for what Aki terms her "lie" to them. With their parents' deaths and the disappearance of Charles, Anah remains cursed even as she attempts to go on. When Anah eventually finds happiness and marries, the chorus of voices from the dead extends the curse to her children. Only many years later-following much suffering and one horrifying event-does Anah find a way to appease the ghosts and to forgive herself. A cacophony of voices both living and dead who speak a variety of Hawaiian dialects spikes the narrative, but Yamanaka's beautiful, harsh prose and thematic vision unify this intense novel."—Publishers Weekly