The nine somber, simply-told tales of Pak's collection (after Children of a Fireland)
illustrate the friction and cross-cultural pollination among the Asian, hapa (native), and haole (white) populations on Hawaii. Featuring Asian protagonists, the stories often veer toward magical realism even while they are informed by a modern class and race consciousness. One of Pak's most poignant and fully realized pieces, "An Angel for Guy Matsuzaki," centers on a lonely mechanic who frequents strip clubs for female companionship. When he rescues an older motorist on the freeway, the grateful man sends him to a unique, unnerving escort service. In "A House of Mirrors," a spinster and retired educator of Japanese extraction retreats to an isolated life of fantasy, seduced by white storybook and movie heroines. A Korean couple desperate to conceive consult with a series of witch doctors–cum–fertility experts in "Rebirth," which reads more like a snapshot than a story. In the gritty "My Friend Kammy," a rueful, aging hippie cabdriver is spurred by a fellow cabbie's suicide to start writing the novel he's been putting off for years. Pak's accessible prose and compassion for his characters vivify the dilemmas of people hobbled by limited means or racial hierarchies. (Dec.)
