Title: Moloka'i
Author: Alan Brennert
Genre: Fiction
Rating: 3/5- Good. Read it, have a good time and move on. Or not.
Rating: 3/5- Good. Read it, have a good time and move on. Or not.
Book Source: Borrowed from a friend
Recommended if you like: Historical fiction, Stories of Hawaii
What Its About:
The Kalama family have lived a happy existence in their native and idyllic 1890's Honolulu, Hawaii, until one day their youngest daughter Rachel develops a rash on her leg. Rachel's mother is horrified and tries desperately to make sure Rachel hides the rash. But through a careless comment, Rachel's sister shares the horrible infomation that her sister is a leper, suffereing from leprosy. Rachel is quickly shuttled off to the local hospital and held for months while doctors try to save her.
Eventually, seven-year-old Rachel (a bit of trouble maker, she is a child after all), is deemed a lost cause and sent to Kalaupapa, an isolated leper colony on Moloka'i island. Rachel spends most of the rest of her natural life on Moloka'i watching friends and family come and go, struggling to understand why her mother has disappeared from her life without writing or visiting, and dreaming of that day when she will get to leave the island and reunite with her mother, siblings and a child that she bears who is taken from her before the child can be infected.
It is only in her old age that Rachel finally learns the fates of her sister and brothers and the depth of her mother's love.
A beautifully written, historically accurate, story of those who found themselves inflicted with leprosy in those days and times.
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