Sharks in the Time of Saviors by Kawai Strong Washburn

 

Sharks in the Time of Saviors

by Kawai Strong Washburn

Young Nainoa Flores is about to drown on a cruise trip with his family in Hawaii when a shiver of sharks delivers him unharmed back to the boat. His story becomes a legend and his family, in various ways, deals with the aftermath. His parents think he is touched by the Gods, and he does in fact acquire the ability to heal people. His siblings feel like they are forgotten; Dean looks at Noa as someone he has to compete with for attention and prestige, while Kaui just feels altogether marginalized in the eyes of her parents.

The children grow up and leave the island, leave behind their parents to their economic struggle and leave the island with its history, and its disparities. The consequence is their struggles on the mainland where they are othered. Dean goes to college in Seattle where he makes a name for himself as a star athlete, determined to outshine Noa in some way. Kaui, in San Diego, wants to forget Noa and her family altogether. She does drugs, puts herself in precarious situations with free climbing, and explores her sexuality. Noa, in Portland, has become an EMT and works at using his gift to help as many people as he can. But when he fails to fix a dying pregnant woman he questions his purpose and heads back to Hawaii and his parents, in search of meaning and direction.

During one of his hikes, Noa dies tragically and we are left to wonder: Did he have an accident? Did the Gods take him? Did he kill himself?

His family is left bereft and succumbs to Noa's death in various ways. Dean wants to step up and take his place as the family's savior. Augie, the father, is so grief stricken that he regresses to an infantile state of need. Malia, the mother, tries to keep going, to keep it all together, to pay the bills, to be strong for her family. Kaui stays in school; there's nothing she can do to change what has happened, and at the urging of her mother stays the course.

Sharks in the Time of Saviors asks a lot of questions and it explores a lot of themes: hope, fear, belief, life and death, grief and healing, home and legacy. It discusses the anger of colonization and the erasure of Hawaiian history, language, and traditions. It explores identity and giving in to who you are. It asks if legends are true? Can we believe in them? Should the family believe in Noa? Should we? 

The ideas of sharks and saviors is an interesting contrast. Sharks are alive, in motion, hungry, searching, feared, and dangerous. Saviors are mythic, an ideal to live up to, they save us from danger, they are venerated, they rescue. Noa is thought of as a savior, and in fact acts as one through his story line. Kaui saves herself, and in some way her father and mother. Dean saves his parents economically in the end. Augie and Malia are just trying to survive and to provide in their homeland which has been invaded and is now too expensive for them to exist in in comfort. The entire family, in some way, struggles with the ideas of myths and miracles, whether to believe in them, and how to live with them in the face of Noa's death.

This book is exquisitely written, the prose both beautiful and raw as it explores reality in an honest way, where one second people can share a divine moment and the next a crass one. Just like life. The story is an honest and open exploration of the self as it sees itself in relation to others, and in relation to others like the self. The surreal and supernatural elements are very real to the Hawaiians and to these specific characters; they are part of the natural world, not some magic that is separate from reality.

Sharks in the Time of Saviors is a 5-star book. It asks tough questions and, I think, in most ways exists for Hawaiians in defiance of the white gaze. The language is not explained and the myths and legends are not presented in an artificial way. It is a real and raw portrait of life in a paradise in which its natives have been forced to struggle to survive.