Moloka'i, a great read about a little known subject. | Moloka'i

Greatest historical novel ever | Moloka'i | Alan Brennert

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	• Moloka'i Alan Brennert St. Martin's Press, 2003 - 384 pages average customer review:based on 113 reviews view larger image
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highly recommended

Amazing

This is such as sweeping, visionary tale. It has characters that are so real and alive, and the juxtaposition of them against their physical torment and obstacles is fresh and moving. This is the first book in a long time that stuck with me long after I read it. A MUST READ!

Moloka'i, a great read about a little known subject.

Moloka'i is an historical fiction that tells the sometimes horrible story of leper patients who lived in Hawaii. There are great things in this book. It will make you weep because it all really happened (except the main characters are fictional). But there is also humor and love and great kindness. It's well written and about a subject that was foreign to me. I learned a lot and read a few other books on the subject afterward to find out more. I highly recommend it. It's a great read.

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Greatest historical novel ever

This was the most engrossing and emotional book I have ever read. There were moments I had to put it down for fear of crying and looking ridiculous for doing so. There were joyful moments and sad moments and everytime I put it down, I had to remind myself I am Tara in Utah, not Rachel in Molokai. Thats how truly potent this story is. You must remind yourself where and who you are. The story starts with Rachel as a child, no leprosy yet and progresses to her diagnosis and being torn from her family. She makes new family though and lives her life to its fullest. The ending will bring tears to the hardest of people. The author was very informative of the history and times without being tedious. I really reocommend this to anyone who has a handicap, disability, or disease and to anyone that has ever made cruel jests at those who do. Those with some kind of impairment will understand and feel for the leper colony and also gain some hope from this story. Those who have made cruel jests, I hope you learn something and perhaps feel some compassion for those you see as less fortunate physcially than yourselves. On the outside, we all have flaws. On the inside some are truly beautiful no matter their physical deformities or differences. That is what this story really speaks to me.

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Tropical reading to warm your heart.

Alan Brennert's "Molokai" is a wonderful story, full of the joy and misfortune that makes for heartfelt reading. It is the story of Rachel, and her family, and her discovery of a mark that would change their lives completely. The characters are tangible, seeming to appear out of time. The depiction of the lush beauty of the Sandwich Islands is splendid. The characters of the captive community are depicted in their glory and their misery. Rachel is not a leper, but one of us, stricken with an insidious disease. Leprosy was treated like a medieval plague, and the casualties left along the way were many, even though the manner of dealing with the disease was effective in the long run. In my own trip to Molokai in 1987, I heard that ships arriving with stricken men, women and children dropped anchor while still away from the shore, and the afflicted were pushed into the water, and had to swim to shore or die trying. It is an ugly moment in our history, and one that needs to be revealed.

I enjoyed reading about the switchback trail along the pali, the looming mountainside which cuts off the leper settlement from the rest of the island, and cuts away the sun during daytime hours. Our group made the trek up, and back, and it was no easy task.

I wanted to give the book five stars, but I was disappointed by how some of the characters were painted by the author. The Franciscan Sisters from Syracuse, led by Mother Marianne Cope, were given short shrift. Brennert gives religious life an insult by showing nuns as misfits for the most part. One gets the feeling that Rachel is far more mature than them all. I am glad that Sr. Catherine was given a human face, but why not some of the others?

And the leper priest, Father Damien was depicted insensitively, coming across more like a stereotypical zealous Evangelical preacher at times. One should know that there were musical instruments, and there were riding horses, and lumber for homes for the residents on Molokai because of his tireless efforts.

Suffice it to say that despite these drawbacks, the book is a must read. It will brighten the life of the reader, who may be able to conceive of God as larger than any human tragedy.

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So good, I cried.

Lately I have found I have been judging books by their ability to make me feel emotion. At first I wondered if Moloka'i could do that. This story begins with Rachel as an innocent, naive little girl, suddenly thrown into an unfamiliar world separated from all that she knows and loves. Her character grows into her adult self in this world of isolation just as any young girl would. The author expertly conveys the growth of this character slowly over time.
Shame and prejudice exist all over the world, only Rachel didn't realize that she was never alone until she found her family again.
Moloka'i made me angry and made me cry. This is a wonderful story set in an unusual place and it is a must read on my list.
Linda C. Wright
Author, One Clown Short
One Clown Short

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Young Rachel Kalama, growing up in idyllic Honolulu in the 1890s, is part of a big, loving Hawaiian family, and dreams of seeing the far-off lands that her father, a merchant seaman, often visits. But at the age of seven, Rachel and her dreams are shattered by the discovery that she has leprosy. Forcibly removed from her family, she is sent to Kalaupapa, the isolated leper colony on the island of Moloka'i.

In her exile she finds a family of friends to replace the family she's lost: a native healer, Haleola, who becomes her adopted "auntie" and makes Rachel aware of the rich culture and mythology of her people; Sister Mary Catherine Voorhies, one of the Franciscan sisters who care for young girls at Kalaupapa; and the beautiful, worldly Leilani, who harbors a surprising secret. At Kalaupapa she also meets the man she will one day marry.

True to historical accounts, Moloka'i is the story of an extraordinary human drama, the full scope and pathos of which has never been told before in fiction. But Rachel's life, though shadowed by disease, isolation, and tragedy, is also one of joy, courage, and dignity. This is a story about life, not death; hope, not despair. It is not about the failings of flesh, but the strength of the human spirit.

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