Book summary

Since 1915 the tiny Hawaiian island of Niihau has been almost entirely closed off to the outside world. This isolation was ruptured in 1941 when a Japanese pilot, on his return from the attack on Pearl Harbor, crash-landed, and was captured by the islanders. Using this historical oddity as a jumping-off point for a novel, Caroline Paul has ingeniously recreated the unlikely events, and vividly depicted the strange and tragic conclusion. In particular, she shows the torn loyalties of the island's three Japanese-American occupants. In doing so, Paul turns a peculiar footnote in history into a marvelous work of fiction.

Media reviews

"[The] records of the Niihau episode are spotty and contradictory....It is a testament to [Caroline Paul's] ability as a writer that the novel's most captivating creation, Niihau itself, is the pure product of her imagination. When it's over, we don't want to leave."