RUNNING FROM MOLOKA'I

In the late 19th century, Mele Bennett is a hapa-haole (mixed-race) girl. Her White father is Dr. Reed Bennett, who is with the Board of Health; her mother, Nahoa, is a Native Hawaiian. Their marriage is tested by the policy of forced resettlement to the colony on Moloka’i for all who are diagnosed with leprosy, and it is the Natives, the kanaka, who are almost exclusively susceptible. For those sent to the colony, it is a lonely life: They will never return to their homes and they will never see their loved ones again. Moreover, conditions are barely humane. Reed is very pained by this policy, but the science of the day dictates that such isolation is the only safeguard against an epidemic. He has to follow his conscience. Meanwhile, Mele’s childhood love, Keahi, finds a suspicious rash on his chest. Like many others, he escapes into the bush, where tracking him is almost impossible. This is when Mele discovers that her father is more than she thought and she begins to reconcile her White half and brown half, something that was tearing her apart. Anderson writes beautifully. The opening paragraph about Mele’s childhood house reveals a major theme of the book in just a few brush strokes of color. The scene in which young Jacob Maila is torn from his screaming mother by the authorities is truly heart-rending. And the arrogance of the powers that be (haole—White—of course) is infuriating. The author gives Mele, the first-person narrator, uncommon poetic gifts, as in streetlights “winking like stories wanting to be told” or when her father’s “voice crawled out of his throat” in an agonized reply. Almost every page offers such a treat. Readers will fervently hope that Anderson has more novels in her because this one is a winner.

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