Blu's Hanging

Getting to a truth about the world by writing from the eyes of a child is a venerable literary strategy. Yamanaka used the voice of an adolescent in Wild Meat and the Bully Burgers, her hailed first novel, and here she has refined that technique in a powerfully affecting narrative. The sad and bewildering events related by 13-year-old Ivah Ogata are somewhat impeded by the stilted pidgin English of working-class Hawaii, but once the reader finds the cadence, this story of three young siblings virtually abandoned after their mother's death becomes mesmerizing. While her father hides guilty secrets behind an abusive manner, and the family teeters on the edge of poverty, it is up to Ivah to feed and care for little Maisie, who hasn't spoken since their mother died, and brother Blu, whose increasing dependence on food and damaging relationships as a substitute for security brings shame upon their family. Yamanaka conveys that shame forcefully, often in conjunction with scenes of sexual exploration and abuse, as when Blu services a perverted old man in exchange for candy. In fact, sexually crude and violent scenes abound in the book, and the profanities endemic to the children's conversation emphasize the degree to which their innocence has been lost. Ivah reflects her age in some respects, with comic misperceptions of the adult world common to preadolescents; these are mixed with an increasingly resigned acceptance of brutal events with which no child should have to cope. The narrative builds to a deeply touching moment when Ivah must make a choice between her future and that of her siblings. In presenting issues of race, violence and neglect through the filtered lenses of these children, Yamanaka gives us a textured picture of their society and of the tensions that exist beyond the borders of a troubled family. When Blu and Maisie debate the meaning of ""sweet sorrow,"" the narrative finds resolution in this mixture of hope and sadness. (Apr.)