Local Story: The Massie-Kahahawai Case and the Culture of History

History professor Rosa’s reach exceeds his grasp as he attempts to place a 1930s cause célèbre in its broader social context. In 1931, Thalia Massie, the wife of a Navy lieutenant, was the victim of a gang rape by “some Hawaiian boys,” and subsequently identified five locals as her assailants. The first case ended in a mistrial; subsequently, two of the defendants were kidnapped, and in early 1932, one was murdered. With several existing true-crime narratives examining the case, and whether the men were guilty of assaulting Massie, Rosa sets himself a different goal: to examine “how and why the case has been portrayed in Hawai’i as a ‘local’ story.” Some readers will be turned off by Rosa’s references to the attack as an “alleged rape,” given that the primary issue has been who was responsible for the sexual assault, not whether it actually occurred. His convoluted explanation for the qualifying language is typical of the book’s frequently opaque prose; references to things such as “the ideology of an imagined social space”are likely to go above the heads of most lay readers. The book may be more suitable for social scientists. (Apr.)