Punahou Blues
The setting for the book (ISBN 0-9741067-1-2) is his high school alma mater Punahou School. The novel provides a window into the tumultuous 60s and 70s in multicultural Honolulu, from the viewpoint of a white (haole) boy narrator searching for identity in a private school. His rite of passage includes losing the girl of his dreams, not living up to his father's great expectations, surviving Killahaole Day, being suspended, sibling rivalry, fighting the school bully, and navigating the tricky waters of interracial dating.
A parallel novel entitled MOLOKA'I NUI AHINA was published in August 2007. The book (ISBN 978-0-9741067-2-4) features the life and times of Julia Daniels, a Moloka'i pioneer woman of mixed blood, who invites her grandsons Jeff and Ben to spend summers with her at her ranch. She shares the land with ex-husband Chipper, an alcoholic war hero with a life estate bordering the swamp. The boys roam a paradise of fishponds, waterfalls, and mountains with herds of deer. Jeff meets the kahuna woman who freezes pictures of her enemies, the transsexual who seduces the Chief of Police, the man who referees cock fights in Kaunakakai, the beautiful divorcee who lives in the saddle room, and the prodigal grandfather who returns to woo Julia. These characters shape Jeff's sensibilities as he learns the secrets of his grandmother's wild past in Honolulu and the intensity of her struggles on the Lonely Isle.
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