I’m truly grateful to all of you – from Liz Epstein’s Literary Masters groups (10 book groups in the San Francisco Bay Area) to the marvelous ladies of the Hawaiian Historical Society, to the book group that met in San Francisco’s Pacific Heights and included descendants of the Dillingham family as well as an astonishing pineapple cake, to Catherine Hartman’s lovely group of Stanford alum and other book-loving friends in Chicago to Jason Poole (The Accidental Hawaiian Crooner) who also organizes a reading group in Pittsburgh. I’m especially grateful to Julie Robinson of Literary Affairs, who organizes book events and moderates book groups in Beverly Hills and the Los Angeles area, for choosing Lost Kingdom as one of her recommended reads.

Here are some questions to discuss on Lost Kingdom that come from Liz Epstein at Literary Masters and adapted by Beth Baily Gates, who’s been running the Fairfax Public Library’s book group for nearly a decade. Hope they’re helpful and if you have other questions, I’d be delighted to skype or phone into your book group for a chat if my schedule permits: here’s the link to request me.

Points to Ponder for Lost Kingdom

• Whose story is Lost Kingdom and who should be telling it? Do you think Julia Flynn Siler, a mainland writer, does a good job of showing all sides of this story about nineteenth century Hawaii?  Do you think it is an important story?

• Is there a hero/heroine or villain/villainess in this story?

• How do you feel about Hawai’i’s last ruling queen, Lili’uokalani?  Could she have done anything to alter the course of historical events?  Should she have?  Do you consider her a tragic figure?

• How responsible was King David Kalakaua for the course of events?

• How do you feel about the way the United States handled the annexation of Hawaii?  Grover Cleveland claimed “Hawaii is ours…as I contemplate the means used to complete the outrage, I am ashamed of the whole affair.”  Do you agree/ disagree with him?

• How do you feel about the way the Hawaiians handled the annexation of Hawaii?  Did you get a good sense from the book as to how and why they behaved as they did?

• What surprised you about Claus Spreckels?  What about Dole?  Are there other characters in the book that you feel played a pivotal role and you’d like to know more about them?

• What were the motives of the original missionaries in coming to Hawaii, and then how do you feel about their descendents?  Was everyone generally well-intentioned, or was self-interest paramount?

• What is the relevance of this history for us today?

• Can you imagine an alternate history?  Where would Hawaii be today if the US hadn’t annexed it?  Where would the US be today without Hawaii?

• This was our non-fiction selection for the season.  Do you think this particular history of Hawaii could be better told as ‘historical fiction’?

We were invited to the J-Town hui’s annual holiday show and potluck. The hui (Hawaiian for a club or association) was made up of students in the music and vocal classes led by a beloved and longtime Hawaiian music teacher in the city named Carlton Ka’ala Carmack. There were ukeleles, hula performances, and mountains of delicious food. As the island saying goes, it was real ono!

Julia Flynn Siler, author of “Lost Kingdom” (left) and Carlton  Ka’ala Carmack, Hawaiian music teacher (right) in Dec. 2012

Ka’ala grew up on Oahu and performed in a play written by John Dominis Holt, whose 1964 essay “On Being Hawaiian” helped spark  the Hawaiian Renaissance movement. Also known as Dee, Ka’ala moved to San Francisco in 1978 and played a key role in educating a new generation of students in the Bay Area on the subtleties of Hawaiian music.

An ethno-musicologist who speaks six languages and a gifted singer and musician, Ka’ala’s done everything from serving as an artist-in-residence for the Institute for Diversity in the Arts at Stanford University to teaching a pilot course in Pacific Islander Studies at San Francisco State University.

For more than a decade, Ka’ala directed the J-Town Hui, a well-loved ukulele and vocal ensemble based out of the Japanese Cultural and Community Center of Northern California (JNCCNC) where he teaches ukulele classes and a course called “Hawaiian Expressive Singing.”

Members of the J-Town Hui performed at Roy and Kathy Sakuma’s  41^st Ukelele Festival in Honolulu in July of 2011 and at the Maui Ukelele Festival in Kahului, Hawai’i last fall.

I got to know Ka’ala when he very kindly agreed to play some of Queen Lili’uokalani’s songs at a gathering for the launch of my book, Lost Kingdom: Hawaii’s Last Queen, the Sugar Kings, and America’s First Imperial Adventure, earlier this year.

After that, we did a number of events together – including appearing on KQED’s Forum show with Michael Krasny, the Foothill College Authors Series in Silicon Valley for Pacific Islander month, and as keynoters at this year’s Hawaii Book and Music Festival in May.

If you’d like to hear Ka’ala, he composed and performed the music for the recently released documentary, “Towards Living Pono,” produced by the award-winning filmmaker, Rick Bacigalupi. (Pono is a Hawaiian word with many meanings, including goodness, uprightness, morality.) You can also watch him perform Queen Lili’uokalani’s Aloha Oe here.

Patrick Makuakane, the hulu kumu of San Francisco’s well known Na Lei Hulu troupe was also at the party to pay his respects to Ka’ala. He was one of a large number of people who waited in line to greet and thank him.

The afternoon of ukulele playing, hula dancing, singing, and a lot of hugging was made even more poignant because it was also a goodbye party for Ka’ala, who is taking a job teaching chorus, voice, and an introduction to Hawaiian music at the Windward Community College on Oahu starting this spring.

Hau’oli Lānui (happy holidays in Hawaiian) and aloha, Ka’ala. See you soon in the islands!

Carlton Ka’ala Cormack (left) and Julia Flynn Siler (right) at the Hawaii Book and Music Festival in May, 2012

The occasion was the monthly meeting of the Marin branch of the California Writers Club, a group incorporated in 1913 that had Jack London as one of its first members. About forty people had decided to spend a few hours during a beautiful fall afternoon inside (shortly before the Giants won the World Series) to hear a discussion about writing groups, including how to form them, and the challenges and surprising side-benefits of creating your own work group.

Allison Hoover Bartlett, author of “The Man Who Loved Books Too Much” speaking at the California Writers Club’s October meeting

But the name of the critique group was puzzling to some. So here’s our story.

North 24^th Writers is a long-established writing group made up of ten Bay Area women who’ve collectively published ten nonfiction books as well as hundreds of articles and essays in magazines, journals, and online publications. It is one of the Bay Area’s most successful writing groups as judged by its publishing record over the past decade.

Allison Hoover Bartlett, the author of The Man Who Loved Books Too Much and one of the founding members of North 24^th Writers, explained the group’s name, which came from where its members live: all of us live north of San Francisco’s 24^th Street.

Most of the group’s ten writers are based in San Francisco, including Bartlett and Susan Freinkel, author of Plastics: A Toxic Love Story and American Chestnut. But Frances Dinkelspiel, author of Towers of Gold, lives in Berkeley, and both Katherine Ellison, a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist and author of five books, including Buzz and The Mommy Brain, and Julia Flynn Siler, author of Lost Kingdom and The House of Mondavi, live in Marin.

Bartlett was one of the writers who spun North 24^th Writers out of Jane Anne Staw’s creative nonfiction work in the late 1990s. A few people came and went over the years, but since 2006, it’s been the same group of writers—all of whom began writing non-fiction, though now two have branched out into fiction. Over the years, we’ve learned a few lessons:

-Define your purpose early on. For North 24^th Writers, our primary focus is on the craft of writing. We spend most of our time critiquing each other’s work, but allot some time to discuss the business of publishing, marketing, etc..

-Establish rules that everyone agrees. North 24^th meets twice a month for two and a half hours each time. We sign up in advance to submit writing that the group will critique, submitting pieces no later than five days before the workshop.

-Choose the right partners. You might start by joining a critique class and then finding fellow students who you might want to continue working with. Don’t be discouraged if no one in your first class seems like a good fit—keep taking classes.

Susan Freinkel (front) author of Plastics: A Toxic Love Story, and Kathy Ellison, author of Buzz at the CWC’s October meeting at Book Passage

As Bartlett joked, taking a class to find compatible writing partners is “like going on a real date rather than browsing Match.com.”

-Read out loud. One of the best ways to find out how a piece of writing is working is to begin by reading it out loud to your group. You’ll immediately sense which rhythms and word choices are working—and those that aren’t.

-Sandwich your criticism. Start with the positive then move onto specific comments about what parts of the writing did and did not work, including specific suggestions on how to address those issues. Finish up with something positive.

-Friendships in a group can become a handicap. Over the years, the members of North 24^th have become good friends. But the risk is that the group can become too safe and lose track of its original purpose. Be aware of this and don’t pull your punches (just sandwich them!) As Gil Mansergh, who attended the panel and has his own longstanding writing group observed, “even though you’re dealing with somebody’s babies, don’t be too nice!”

-Staying committed. Everyone is busy, but if the group becomes lackadaisical about scheduling meeting times, it can easily fall away. Block out your monthly workshop time together and keep those times sacrosanct.

Towards the end of the discussion, the James Beard award-winning cookbook writer Lorna Sass, thanked the panel for sharing its experiences with the group.

“The beauty of what your doing is that it dispels the myth that we should be doing this alone,” she observed. We agree. By creating our own community, we’ve helped each other become better writers.

Bartlett and Freinkel having fun on a panel on writing groups at Book Passage

This opening line – Call me Ishmael – was written by Herman Melville in his epic about Captain Ahab’s quest to kill the white whale Moby Dick. One of the surprises of the San Francisco Opera’s current production of Moby Dick is that this line is used in a different way in the story – to very good effect. I won’t spoil the pleasure in telling you how, but would urge you to see this wonderful production  yourself.

The cast of San Francisco Opera’s performance of Moby Dick Photo by Corey Weaver.

Born in New York City in 1819, Melville spent four years during his twenties (1841-1845) working on whaling ships. He began as a cabin boy on a whaler  heading from Massachusetts, around Cape Horn, to the Pacific. He lived amongst the Typee, took part in a mutiny, and worked for a time as a pin setter in a bowling alley in Honolulu.

Melville was one of the more interesting characters to land in Hawaii during the first half of the nineteenth century, when the whaling industry was at its height. His impressions from that time are notable for their bite: he was no fan of the Christians who came from Massachusetts and other eastern states to spread the word of God to the native Hawaiians.

Unimpressed with the quality of the Westerners who became courtiers to King Kamehameha III, he described them in a footnote to his first novel, Typee, as “a junta of ignorant and designing Methodist elders in the council of a half civilized king ruling with absolute sway over a nation just poised between barbarism and civilization.”

Aside from getting their religion wrong – the missionaries who came to Hawaii were mostly Congregationalists, not Methodists – and insulting Hawaii’s king, Melville did capture the sense of change sweeping over the kingdom. Since the Missionaries first arrived in Hawaii in 1820, they’d given the Hawaiians, whose culture up until then had been oral, an alphabet and printing presses. By the 1840s, a flowering of literacy was taking place in Hawaii.

Jonathan Lemalu (Queequeg) and Stephen Costello (Greenhorn) in SF Opera’s Moby Dick. Photo by Cory Weaver.

Watching the opera of Moby Dick last week, I couldn’t help but think about Melville, who makes a cameo appearance in my history of Hawaii, Lost Kingdom. As someone who loves language, I was awed by the work of Gene Scheer in turning his sprawling, 800 or so page opus, into the 60-page libretto for the opera Moby Dick.

In the novel, Ishmael narrates the story – looking back in time. Instead, Scheer set all the action on the whaling ship.  The narrator who begins with the famous line Call Me Ishmael is gone – at least in the role as the person telling the story.

Jane Ganahl, Litquake’s co-founder, profiled Scheer in the opera’s program notes. She also helped organize a Litquake event with the librettist on October 8th that I truly wish I could have attended. He told her that one of the key challenges in adapting a book into another medium is that “people don’t want to see people on stage telling the story, they want to be shown the story. I struggled with how to get at the truth of the story, until I had a breakthrough, and realized I should have the story unfold through the eyes of Greenhorn, the only person who had never been on a whaling ship. His is a transformative journey.” (Greenhorn is the character in the photo smoking a pipe — and baritone Jonathan Lemalu was wonderful as Queequeg.)

Perhaps the most powerful magic for me in the opera was Scheer’s use of Melville’s language. Scheer estimated that at least half the libretto was taken directly from the book. Set to music and sung, the words were more like poetry than prose.  Melville’s words set to Jake Heggie’s music was powerful and profoundly moving.

Jay Hunter Morris (Captain Ahab). Photo by Cory Weaver.

The late Warren Hellman playing his banjo at the Hardly Strictly Bluegrass Festival

I’ll be celebrating Litquake on Saturday from 2-3 p.m. by taking part in the opening “Off the Richter Scale” series. The panel I’m on is called “Around the World, On the Page,” and I’m looking forward to catching up with fellow authors Tamim Ansary, Carolina De Robertis, Zoe Ferraris, and Aimee Phan. But I’m also a bit disappointed because Scott James (whose pen name is Kemble Scott) will be emceeing the “Litquake in the Castro” event – a series of provocative outdoor readings held at Jane Warner Plaza, at the corner of Castro and Market Street, starting at 1:00 p.m. that day. There’s no way for me to make it from the Castro readings to the Variety Preview Room, which is in the financial district, in time to attend both fun events.

After work tonight, I’m headed after work today to exhibit of the BayWood Artists at the Bay Model in Sausalito. The opening reception is this Friday, October 5^th, from 5-8 p.m. and the show runs Tuesdays through Saturdays, from October 5^th through the 26^th. One of the Baywood Artists is our dear family friend Zenaida “Zee Zee” Mott. It is truly a reflection of the generous character for Zee Zee and her fellow plein air painters to arrange to donate fifty percent of the sales from this show to support our open space district and the Point Reyes National Seashore. I’ll be there to support her and to also support one of our fabulous nearby park. Join us in Sausalito on Friday night for what will surely be a great evening! (And in another example of the “spoiled for choice” phenomenon, Zee Zee’s grandson Ian Mott will be one of the teens playing in a band at nearby Proof Lab surf shop in Mill Valley tonight. It’s a benefit to raise financial aid funds for less advantage kids to attend the Branson School. I’m hoping to stop in for that, as well!) Sunday, it’s Hardly Strictly and an open house for the Squaw Valley Community of Writers. It’ll take all week to recover…

A dialogue with journalism students

That was a very good question. Lost Kingdom has gotten good reviews in the New York Times Sunday Book Review, the Los Angeles Times, the San Francisco Chronicle, and elsewhere.  There are 62 reader reviews on Amazon and the vast majority of the reviewers gave it four or five stars. But some in Hawai’i have criticized me for not having used more Hawaiian-language source materials, perhaps not realizing that most of the Kingdom of Hawaii’s correspondence as well as the royal family’s private letters and diaries — in other words, the key primary source materials — were written in English. Their basic argument is that someone who can’t read the Hawaiian language newspapers of the 19^th century can’t write a thorough history of the kingdom.

So how do I handle such criticism? In answering the student that day, I started off by joking that after nearly three decades as a reporter, writing for the Wall Street Journal, the New York Times, and BusinessWeek magazine, my skin had grown pretty thick and that helped me separate professional criticism from my personal feelings. I also told him that I care very deeply about getting things right. That’s one of the reasons why I’ve enlisted the help of scholars and friends to help me make corrections for the paperback version of Lost Kingdom, which will be out in January of 2013.

A few of the students at Hawaiian language school

In a 110,000-word book, there will be mistakes — and checking and correcting for them was one of the first lessons I learned as a new fact-checker at the American Lawyer magazine, straight out of college. If you find one, own up to it and make sure it gets fixed. The story and both your and the publication’s reputation are more important than a dented ego.  In terms of Hawaiian cultural values, the goal is to be pono – which, roughly translated, means do the right thing. That’s why I’m taking so much care in correcting and updating the new edition of the book. Most of the changes are very small, but it’s important to make them.

Later that same day, I got an earful from a University of Hawai’i scholar at an event at the Bishop Museum. She pointed out things she didn’t like about it – ranging from my description of a Hawaiian laborer in a sugar mill (she thought I had sexualized him) to her contention that human sacrifices

were never made to the goddess Pele. I’m checking out what she said and will fix what’s wrong. But I think she didn’t understand that my goal was never to write an academic history: my goal was to write a popular history, for the non-academic reader. And the reason I included more than 800 endnotes, documenting my source materials, was that so that others could come along and build on my work – telling the story from their own perspectives.

Maybe some of the students I spoke to last week might some day write their own histories of Hawaii. Likewise, I hope the scholars who don’t like my book will write their own. I suspect they’ll find it’s a lot easier to criticize than to create. And because of efforts such as Awaiaulu Project, led by University of Hawaii Professor Puakea Nogelmeier, they’ll have even more source materials to work with through the Hawaiian language newspapers now being translated. There are also many newly available materials in English from the Judd and Forbes collections.

I felt lucky to have had the opportunity to meet so many different kinds of people last week. I was visiting Kamehameha Schools as part of a community dialogue set up by Jamie Conway, founder of the Distinctive Women in Hawaiian History program, an event which took place on Saturday, September 15^th, at Mission Memorial Auditorium in downtown Honolulu. I am grateful to Jamie for arranging what turned out to be a truly unforgettable series of events, taking me places that I’d otherwise probably never have gone on my own.

Nalei Akina of the Lunalilo Home, author Julia Flynn Siler, and Jamie Conway of Distinctive Women in Hawaiian History

I went to the Lunalilo Home, the Bishop Museum (in conversation with “Uncle Ish” Ishmael Stanger, who has a new book out about Hula Kumu (hula teachers,) Kapi’olani Community College, and, most memorably, 150 students and teachers from the Kula Kaiapuni ‘o Ānuenue, a Hawaiian Language Immersion School in Honolulu’s Palolo Valley.  These were all volunteer efforts on my part—my small attempt to give back to the community.

Have I planted any seeds? Might any of those kids think more seriously about becoming  writers or historians, so they can tell stories from their own perspectives, using the newspapers that only now are being translated into English? I do hope so. As I learned from the kids at the immersion school, a key value in Hawaiian culture is Ke Kuleana (to take responsibility.) That’s what I’m doing by making corrections to the new version of my book. Mahalo to all the teachers who are helping me with this task – and also to the teachers such as Thelma Kam, who invited me to join her at dawn for a Hiuwai Ceremony at Moana Beach in Waikiki on Sunday morning, which seemed a perfect way to reflect on my recent trip to  O’ahu.

Here’s the chant that Thelma led us in, which is by Edith Kanakaole

E Ho Mai

E ho mai ka ike mai luna mai e

O na mea huna no’eau o na mele e

E ho mai, e ho mai, e ho mai e

Give forth knowledge from above

Every little bit of wisdom contained in song

Give forth, give forth, do give forth

Thus began an extraordinary one-night performance of the musical “Kingdom Denied,” which was written by kumu hula Mark Keali’i Ho’omalu, founder of the Academy of Hawaiian Arts in Oakland, Ca. I’d interviewed Mark for a page one story in the Wall Street Journal last year about mainland hula troupes headlined “Aloha, Lady Gaga.” (You can watch the video that accompanied the story here.)

Having seen him and members of his halau (hula school) perform their high-energy hula in the course of reporting that story last fall, I was happy to attend “Kingdom Denied: Between the Lines” at Chabot College in Hayward last weekend. This ambitious and, at times, very moving rendition of the rise and fall of Hawaii’s last king and queen was well worth the trip.

Mark Keali’i Ho’omalu as Ioane “Daddy” Ukeke in “Kingdom Denied”

The evening began with kumu Mark, wearing mirrored sunglasses and a white t-shirt, strolled out onto the stage before the show began. Calling for his youngest child, Charles, he held the toddler in his arms as he paid tribute to his fellow kumu hula (hula teacher) Charles Ka’upu, who had died about a year ago. It was a poignant and very sweet way to open the show.

I also enjoyed Mark’s good-natured ribbing of his fellow kumu hula Patrick Makuakane, who was seated in the front row of the packed theater. Patrick’s halau will be staging its well-loved annual extravaganza, “The Hula Show” in San Francisco next month, which I’m looking forward to seeing.

Mark is a powerfully charismatic performer, with a deep, memorable voice. His idea was to tell the story of the final years of the Hawaiian Kingdom through the coverage in the Hawaiian language papers of the time, as well as through Hawaiian songs, hula, and chants. The program notes thank University of Hawaii Professor Puakea Nogelmeier, who is heading up the Awaiaulu Project to translate and preserve a vast store of these historic newspapers.

The number that I found most memorable was the hula ma’i performed in honor of King David Kalakaua. I’d read about this type of hula, which celebrates the genitals and procreative vigor, often explicitly, with lusty movements, but I’d never seen it performed. This one, written for King Kalakaua, was titled “Ko Ma’i Keia” repeated the teasing phrase, “bring it here!”

I also loved the casting of historical figures who’d I’ve lived closely with over the past four years, trying to bring them back to life through the papers and photographs they left behind in the archives. Mr. Ray Bambao, the actor playing the King, in all his bewhiskered magnificence, was superbly cast, as were the bountiful Queen Emma (Ms. K. Soukhamthath) and dignified Queen Lili’uokalani (Mrs. C. Fua.)

King David Kalakaua, played by R. Bamboa, and Princess Liliuokalani, played by C. Fua in the American premiere of “Kingdom Denied”

One colorful character I’d never come across before was Ioane “Daddy” Ukeke, a character played by Mark in an all-white three piece suit and top hat. Iolane apparently got his name because of his skill in playing the native Hawaiian stringed instrument, the ukeke. He was also the leader of a hula troupe that often played for King Kalakaua, according to the program notes. But Ioane’s fortunes mirrored those of the Hawaiian monarchy: he went blind and ended up playing his ukeke in the streets of Honolulu in hope that a passerby might drop him a coin or two.

There were a few hiccups with the chronology of “Kingdom Denied” – something that I noticed, as did the friend who joined me that evening, Carlton Ka’ala Cormack, who came with his wife Rosalie. And if Mark and his halau were to perform it again, I hope they might consider devoting more time to the overthrow, and a bit less to the riot that followed the election of King Kalakaua, after defeating Queen Emma.

While I liked the decision to use contemporary news footage for riots all around the world as a way of putting this one in context, the result was that the latter – and arguably more dramatic events of the overthrow, the failed counter-coup, and Queen Lili’uokalani’s imprisonment were a bit rushed.

I hope that “Kingdom Denied” is performed again soon. The idea of a Hawaiian musical is a compelling one; since music and dance has long been the way that history was passed down in Hawaii’s traditionally oral culture. The crowd loved it – leaping to their feet as the curtain went down. The San Francisco Chronicle’s SFgate team of Jeanne Cooper and Emily Tuupo, who produce the paper’s Hawaii blog and Aloha Friday column, seemed to enjoy it as much as I did. Mahalo to Mark, Pat Ravarra, and other members of the halau for inviting me to join them for this memorable evening.

Ray Bamboa as King David Kalakaua

Queen Lili’uokalani, Hawai’i State Archives

For the past several years, historians, Hawaiian cultural practitioners, and others who keep Lili’uokalaini’s memory alive, have gathered at the grounds of ‘Iolani Palace on her birthday to lead walking historical walking tours in an event called Mai Poina (Don’t Forget.) The tour on her birthday sold out but there are still a few spots left this coming weekend, September 7-9.

This year’s Mai Poina is set to be a very unusual one. According to a story in the Honolulu Star-Advertiser, President Grover Cleveland’s grandson, George Cleveland, visited Hawaii this past weekend to celebrate Lili‘uokalani’s birthday. As part of that trip, he planned to take part in the Mai Poina re-enactment of the overthrow on the palace grounds.

Grover Cleveland, who was the newly elected Democratic president at the time of the overthrow, had doubts about what had happened over those four days in 1893 in the far-away independent kingdom of Hawai’i.

He hastily withdrew the Hawaiian annexation treaty, which his successor, Republican President Harrison, had hoped to push through before leaving office and appointed a special commissioner to investigate the matter that a New York Times headline decried as the “Political Crime of the Century.”

New York Times coverage of the overthrow  in 1893

But partisan politics and heavy lobbying on the part of pro-annexation forces bogged down the question of restoring Liliuokalani to the throne.  Not long after Cleveland’s successor Republican William McKinley took office, the Spanish-American war broke out – making Hawaii suddenly enormously valuable to the war effort as a vital refueling station between North America and Asia.  Hawaii was quickly annexed by a joint resolution of Congress — not a vote — in 1898.

U.S. President Grover Cleveland

Upon hearing that news, Cleveland, who had retired to Princeton, New Jersey, spoke eloquently for those who had opposed annexation. “Hawaii is ours….as I contemplate the means used to complete the outrage, I am ashamed of the whole affair.”

With those words, Cleveland came to be revered by Hawaiians, some of whom continue to mourn the loss of their nation to this day. Indeed, to this day, Cleveland’s gravestone in Princeton is festooned with shell and flower lei in honor of the stance he took. My friend and colleague Silvia Ascarelli, who I know from our days together in the London bureau of the Wall Street Journal, took this photo and several others and sent them to me.

President Grover Cleveland’s headstone in Princeton, New Jersey, festooned with lei, courtesy of Silvia Ascarelli

The family tradition, it seems, is continuing. The Star-Advertiser reports that reports that George Cleveland has been working closely with Hawai‘i’s Pacific Justice & Reconciliation Center’s Cleveland-Lili‘uokalani Education Project. According to the Associated Press, which distributed the Star-Advertiser’s story, “(George Cleveland) says he’s occasionally the target of criticism for his partnership with the center but he believes there is some kind reparation due for the overthrow.”

I wish I could attend today’s re-enactment, but I was lucky enough to be in Honolulu during one of these gatherings two years ago. The walking tour was fascinating, but best of all was the opportunity to engage with University of Hawaii professors as well as a staffer from the Mission Houses Museum and others on a moment in history that continues to puzzle, anger, and grip so many people.

Mai Poina is co-sponsored by the Hawai‘i Council for the Humanities and the University of Hawai‘i’s Center for Biographical Research. It covers the four days in January 1893, leading up to the overthrow of the sovereign kingdom of Hawai‘i. By moving from station to station on the palace grounds, the tour covers many of the places where the overthrow occurred.

On the year I took the tour, the Center for Biographical Research’s director Craig Howes, dressed in period costume, playing the role of a Greek businessman commenting on the tense political environment. His scene took place at King Kalākaua’s Coronation Pavilion on the palace grounds. One of my favorite memories of that evening was of Craig delivering his lines at dusk on the steps of the pavilion, It turns out he’s an amateur actor in his spare time, and was very good in his role!

Craig Howes in period dress

The Wave is one of the most suspenseful and fascinating works of narrative nonfiction that I’ve read in a long time. Casey, whose first bestseller was about Great White Sharks, weaves together three different story lines to explore what she calls “the freaks, rogues, and giants of the oceans.”  She visits the scientists who are tracking and trying to predict and understand these giants. She spends time with world-class surfers and windsurfers like Laird Hamilton, Darrick Doerner, Brett Lickle, and Dave Kalama – penetrating an extreme subculture to the point of being invited by Hamilton to surf the giant wave off of Haiku on Maui’s north shore, known as Pe’ahi or “Jaws” with him on a Jet Ski. And she also seeks out the mariners – the ship captains and crewmen aboard ships – that have come face-to-face with these terrifying, killer waves.

Part of the pleasure for me in reading “The Wave” was that Casey spent much of her time reporting on the north shore of Maui, a place I’ve visited several times over the past year. Here’s her marvelous description of the former sugar plantation town of Paia, where

      “…someone had affixed another sign: “Please Don’t Feed the Hippies.” The edict was delightfully impossible to obey, as everyone in Paia had a touch of hippie soul; it was only a matter of degree. No one cared about your resume in Paia, or that you hadn’t brushed your hair all the way through, or that your truck had seen better days. In the town’s hub, a ramshackle grocery store called Mana Foods, yoga instructors shopped alongside heavily pierced drifters, and pot farmers mingled with supermodels, and Brazilian kitesurfers lined up at the deli counter behind Buddhist priests, and three-hundred-pound Samoan construction workers jostled in the aisles with movie stars…”

There are many such nuggets in “The Wave” and she’s equally gifted at describing places and people. But the emotional heart of her book for me, was her nuanced profile of Laird Hamilton, and his tight team of surfers from Maui’s North Shore who have each other’s backs.  Here’s her description of Hamilton’s genius as a surfer:

“Not only did he ride waves that others considered unrideable, at Jaws and elsewhere, but he did it with a trademark intensity, positioning himself deeper in the pit, carving bottom turns that would cause a lesser set of legs to crumple, rocketing up and down the face, and playing chicken with the lip as it hovered overhead, poised to release a hundred thousand tons of angry water. He seemed to know exactly what the ocean was going to do, and to stay a split second ahead of it.”

Laird Hamilton

Casey propelled me through her narrative, including the sections on wave science and the math and physics behind it. But the risks that Casey’s characters were taking was the book’s jet fuel. Would Laird (called Larry by his friends) find a bigger wave? Who would die? Who would get crushed by the insane power and unpredictability of these waves? As someone who studies narrative nonfiction, I was struck by Casey’s skill at making me care about the stakes involved – not just human lives, but the far larger picture of a period of rising seas and steadily bigger waves as a result of climate change.

There are other reasons why I this book captured my imagination. There’s a power in Hawaii that I’ve come to sense – and fear –more and more each time I’ve visited. On my recent stay in Hana on Maui’s windward side, I came away with renewed respect and terror for the ocean. We’d brushed against it ever so slightly, after paddling sea kayaks from Hana Bay to Red Sand Beach in heavy surf. It’s not often that I truly get scared, but that’s what I felt when faced with swells approaching perhaps ten or twelve feet

Consider, then, the rush of adrenalin and fear that accompanies fifty-foot waves – or a hundred foot monsters – or even a hundred and twenty foot behemoths. Then, take one imaginative step further and join writer Susan Casey in not only tracking down the big-wave surfers who hunt down these terrifying beasts on Jet-Skis in California, Mexico, South Africa, and Hawaii – but even has the courage to join them out on those seas (most terrifyingly, on the back of Laird Hamilton’s Jet Ski as he confronts Jaws.)

Did I love this book so much because I’m afraid of the ocean and, thus, found it fascinating to read about people who overcome their fear? That could help partly explain it. In terms of Casey’s ability to talk to such a wide range of people and truly be invited into their worlds, as a reporter, I admire what she did. I’d love to meet her myself some day and ask her more about how she reported this book. But the very best part of The Wave for me was at the very end, as a typhoon approached Maui’s north shore in late 2009 and Hamilton flies from his home on Kaui to ride his board, the Green Meanie, on Jaws. I won’t spoil the suspense by telling you what happens, but it’s beautiful.

A footnote: Casey’s book has inspired me to take a tiny first step of my own towards not fearing the ocean so much. Our local community college has a course called “Surfing 101,” which takes place out at Stinson Beach, just north of San Francisco. I’m signing up for it today but am wondering – can I find a ti leaf to carry with me?

But my biggest thrill was the chance to meet author and New Yorker writer Susan Orlean, who was just as delightful in person as she is in her books such as Rin Tin Tin,  The Orchid Thief  (which became the movie Adaptation, starring Meryl Streep cast in the role of the Orleans character,) The Bullfighter Checks Her Makeup, and My Kind of Place. In introducing Susan, Book Passage President Elaine Petrocelli noted that when a New Yorker arrived at her home with a new story by Susan in it, her husband Bill knew to leave her in peace until she’d finished it.

Author and New Yorker staff writer Susan Orlean, who was the keynote speaker for the 21st annual Book Passage Travel Writers & Photographers Conference

I feel the same way. These days, when a new edition of the New Yorker hits my ipad with a story by Susan Orlean in it, I’ll read it first thing (though a close second is anything by David Grann, who wrote The Lost City of Z and a remarkable recent piece about an American who took part in the Cuban revolution entitled “The Yankee Commandante.”) Susan has a gift for looking at something seemingly ordinary – a supermarket in Queens, N.Y., for example – and carrying her along with us as she discovers deeper truths about her subjects and the world through it.

With lovely ginger hair and wearing a playful floral skirt, Susan told a packed audience of more than a hundred people on a Saturday night that she starts her stories with authentic curiosity about her subject. She found herself landing in the baking oil town of Midland, Texas, at one point with no idea at first how to understand it. But her questions drove her: why would people settle in a town where the air seemed “dry-roasted” and the earth was so hard that gravediggers needed jackhammers to bury a casket? What would the town reveal about George W. Bush, who once said in an interview that if people “want to understand me, (they) need to understand Midland…”? So Susan, pursuing the answer to that question, flew to Midland in an experience she called “sort of an emotional Outward Bound” — choosing to arrive unprepared so as to remain open to the place, yet as a result feeling “panic, despair, and existential loneliness.”

She soon met a man in a coffee shop took her under his wing and became her guide to Midland for the next three days. (Click here to read her story, “A Place Called Midland.”) Reluctant to begin an encounter with someone by taking notes, she prefers to observe and listen carefully. “What’s important is paying attention.” As for using a tape recorder, she’s not a fan, noting that they can’t capture the texture of a place or the emotions behind someone’s words.

Curiosity isn’t enough, of course, And Susan employs what she calls “stagecraft” – the art of performance, as the writer unfolds and paces a story, controlling the highs and the lows, and building in suspense and surprises. Had she not become a writer, “I think my other career path would have been as a stripper,” she joked to Don George, the conference’s self-described “Papa” and co-founder in conversation with her last night. Her point was that a successful storyteller – like a skilled stripper –slowly reveals the story’s surprises, rather than ripping all her clothes off at once and standing there naked. The pleasure is in the control. (The image of Susan pole dancing somehow came up in the conversation – delightfully making Don lose his train of thought and his cheeks turn pink!)

Susan Orlean and Don George in conversation on August 11, 2012

Someone in the audience asked Susan what she meant by stagecraft. “I think writing is performance,” she said, “and it is important to imagine it being performed.” She went on to explain that the experience of reading is a rhythmic and paced experience and she shared advice that I used throughout the many drafts of my latest book, Lost Kingdom: “The Number one thing you should do with your writing is to read it out loud.” Very, very good advice, as often you can’t spot problems in the language or the rhythm purely by looking at words on a screen or a page. You have to hear and feel it.

How do you start your stories, another person asked her. Often, an image or a phrase comes to mind. In the case of her story on Midland, Texas, the idea began with George Bush’s quote about understanding him through understanding the town. Then, for Susan, it was the image of needing a jackhammer to get buried that stuck with her. It seemed like a place that people really shouldn’t live in – but did, because of the promise of getting rich from oil there. In her latest book, Rin Tin Tin, which I’ve just started, it was the word “immortality” that stuck – the way that this iconic German Shepherd, who’s been dead for more than half a century, still lives through film, books, and other images.

After her talk, Susan’s fans waited in a long line to get their books signed. When she finished that, the conference folks surrounded her, eager to hear more about the affair she’d had with a guide in Bhutan during an earlier panel called “Lust in Translation” (she was in the audience, but had been asked, at one point, to share her experiences.) My author friends Allison Hoover Bartlett, who wrote The Man Who Loved Books Too Much, and Cara Black, who writes the Aimee LeDuc investigation series, as well as our physician writer friend Katherine Neilan, all made the trek from San Francisco to hear Susan. And, despite San Francisco Chronicle travel editor Spud Hilton‘s best efforts to corral us into karaoke, it was too late to stay. Still, we all agreed it was well worth it – with many thanks to Book Passage, Don George, and everyone who made this wonderful conference possible.