Wild Meat and the Bully Burgers

In a fresh, distinctive and authentic voice, Yamanaka's starkly realistic debut novel, a series of linked vignettes, chronicles the coming-of-age of Lovey Nariyoshi, who grows up in a blue-collar, uneducated Japanese family in Hilo, Hawaii. Lovey's pidgin English is sprinkled with so much unfamiliar island vernacular that a glossary would be helpful; while her language is crude and ungrammatical, it is also darkly comical, with an underlying poetic lilt. Lovey considers herself ugly; she can't master standard English so she's in the ``dumb'' class; her family often call her stupid. Her only true friend is an effeminate boy, Jerry, with whom she shares some ill-fated adventures--including stealing money to buy new Barbie dolls. The music, movies and celebrity icons of American pop culture pervade Hawaiian society, and Yamanaki makes clear that self-hatred, shame and the desire to be ``haole'' is characteristic of many mixed-ethnic people there. Lovey yearns for the haole life--a clean, neat house, with no cheap, secondhand furniture. Her father, however, wants to toughen up Lovey and her sister, Calhoon, to the fact that they're poor and will never rise. He makes them witness the slaughter of pet animals raised for food, deliberately runs over a cat to show Lovey that she must learn to survive in a brutal world. The onset of puberty is cruel to Lovey; besides suffering from the knowledge that she will never be popular, she briefly comes under the influence of a religious fanatic who convinces her that the apocalypse is at hand; starts a fire that burns her sister; experiences the suicide of an adored friend; and faces a devastating blow when her father is injured in a hunting accident. But, though Yamanaki pitilessly portrays the poverty of pocketbook, intellect and spirit in Lovey's environment, she also displays--especially in the moving denouement--the bonds of love and understanding that can create poignant, epiphanic moments of reconciliation. Author tour (Jan.)