Tag Archives: lazaretto

Daughter of Moloka’i by Alan Brennert

Moloka’i told the story of Rachel Utagawa, nee Kalama, who lived in the Kalaupapa lazaretto from age 7 when she was diagnosed with leprosy. This book follows her daughter Ruth’s life, from the moment she was taken away from Rachel and her husband Kenji, for her health’s sake. Dear Reader watches her adoptive parents choose her, the half-Japanese, half-Hawaiian 5-year-old at the orphanage, sees her come of age on a California farm, and witnesses her incarceration in the Japanese internment camps in the US during WWII, along with her parents, brothers, husband, and children. This novel connects with the first one when Ruth meets Rachel, in the same scene from Ruth’s perspective this time, a brilliant and heartening re-telling of an emotionally charged meeting.

Brennert traverses the nuances of racism, fear of contagion, and human rights as he tells of the horror of being found out as a victim of leprosy in late 19th / early 20th century Hawai’i, and the dread of a child separated from her family to live with strangers. As with especially well-written historical fiction, the setting of Hawai’i / Moloka’i becomes its own character, showing Hawai’i’s children growing up surfing, the US stealing the islands from the last monarch, Queen Lili’uokalani, and the evolution of the lazaretto. Brennert touches upon Hawai’ian and Japanese honor, race relations and the lack of internment camps for Japanese in Hawai’i. He digs deep into Hawai’ian folklore, with a supporting character who is a native healer, how the “separating sickness” destroys families, and how friendship blends into family.

I was fortunate to receive a copy of this beautiful novel from St. Martin’s Press. I highly recommend reading Moloka’i for full immersion into the multi-generational story.

Lazaretto by Diane McKinney-Whetstone

After Sylvia helps deliver her first baby as an apprentice midwife, Meda, the mother, leaves believing the baby died at the request of the father, her wealthy, white employer. Meda tends to her grief by volunteering at an orphanage, where she takes on the care of two babies and helps raise them. Sylvia assuages her guilt by throwing herself into nursing, obtaining a post at Lazaretto, the first quarantine hospital in the U.S. Though from different socio-economic levels, Sylvia and Meda’s lives brush upon each other slightly throughout the years, though both women are unaware. A wedding party composed of black employees at the Lazaretto is quarantined due to a yellow fever scare. Sylvia must take charge of the ensuing chaos of racial terrorism upon the group on the boat over to the island and deal with white policemen whose purpose is unknown, but who are also quarantined with the wedding party. Meda’s boys end up in the middle and learn the truth of their mother.

McKinney-Whetstone deftly portrays the precarious position of characters in a society that considers them invisible at best, and how they must carefully balance dignity with always a thought toward self-preservation. Though the characters hold their integrity through actions, the dialogue alternates between formal, stiff language without contractions and colloquial dialect, seemingly randomly, and can be distracting from the story. Systemic racism is nearly its own character in the tale, as even refined, strong-willed Sylvia deems it important to pamper the stranded detectives based on their color. Readers of historical fiction, lovers of secrets, and fans of flawed, complex characters will appreciate this novel.