His depiction of the effects of the Depression is startling. Brennert (Moloka'i) weaves the true stories of early Hawaii into his fictional tale, and many of the captivating people Jin encounters are real. Seeing life through Jin’s eyes is a pleasure as she changes from a farm-bound, repressed immigrant girl to an outgoing, educated member of Hawaiian society. "This sweeping, epic novel follows Jin from her homeland of Korea to a new life on the blossoming Hawaiian Islands. "Veteran Hollywood writer Alan Brennert scored a book-club hit with Moloka'i and has apparently one-upped himself with his freestanding follow-up about early-twentieth-century Hawaii, which was our readers' clear favorite. The story is compelling, poignant, and powerful." -Tucson Citizen a fascinating literary snapshot of Hawaii during the early years of the last century. Brennert's realization of a character of so different a time, place and gender of his own is an amazing accomplishment in itself. "'Regret' is the given name of the protagonist of Alan Brennert's beautiful, sprawling novel Honolulu.
A moving, multilayered epic by a master of historical He has done it again in 'Honolulu,' which focuses on the Asian immigrant experience in Hawaii. That's what Los Angeles writer Alan Brennert did in his previous novel, Moloka'i, the story of diseased Hawaiians exiled in their own land. It plunges readers into a different world and defines the historical and cultural pressures the characters face in that particular time and place.
"Successful historical fiction doesn't just take a story and doll it up with period detail. With its passionate knowledge of people and places in Hawaii far off the tourist track, HONOLULU is another spellbinding story of the triumphs and sacrifices of the human spirit from the author of the reading group favorite MOLOKA'I. Prospering along with her adopted city, which is fast growing from a small territorial capital to the great multicultural city it is today, Jin can never forget the people she left behind in Korea, and returns one last time to make her peace with her former life. Struggling to build a business with the help of her fellow picture brides, Jin finds both opportunity and prejudice, but ultimately transforms herself from a naive young girl into a resourceful woman.
Instead of the prosperous young husband and the chance at an education she has been promised, Jin is quickly married off to a poor, embittered laborer who takes his disappointments out on his new wife, forcing her to make her own way in a strange land. HONOLULU is the richly imagined story of Jin, a young “picture bride” who leaves her native Korea-where girls are so little valued that she is known as Regret-and journeys to Hawaii in 1914 in search of a better life.
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