"Mary Troy gives us characters whose daily lives trespass upon 
their fantasies. The Hawaii these characters inhabit topples the 
clichés we have been conditioned to believe in. Funny, touching, 
and hauntingly real, these ten stories capture an island landscape 
where hope is 'as thick as steam,' and everything—including racial 
identity and love—is complicated and conditional."— Lucinda Roy, 
author, Lady Moses

"With gentle humor and a fine eye for what matters between people, 
these stories offer up the lives of survivors with great dignity in prose
as enchanting and as sharply made as the Islands themselves."—Lee
Martin, author, Turning Bones

"If this is your first trip to Hawaii, you're blessed to have Mary Troy 
as your Virgil. You'll be getting off the beach and looking beyond the 
splashy vistas you know from postcards and movies into the lives of 
people struggling to recapture what they've lost or to embrace what 
they've never had."—John Dufresne, author, Deep in the Shade of
Paradise

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MARY TROY is the author of two previous collections of short 
fiction—The Alibi Café and Other Stories and Joe Baker Is Dead.
She has won a Nelson Algren Award and been nominated for three 
Pushcart prizes and the PEN/Faulkner award. She has published 
stories and essays in many literary venues, including Boulevard, 
Greensboro Review, American Literary Review, and Sou'wester. She 
teaches writing and directs the MFA program at the University of 
Missouri–St. Louis.



What people are saying about this book

"Mary Troy has captured the sweet homely heart of Honolulu, with 
its tacky beauty pageants, gossiping aunties, hierarchy of old 
missionary families and influx of young dropouts from the mainland. 
Here is a city of torch ginger, cockroaches, plantation houses and 
shanties, peopled with spirited small-time entrepreneurs who are 
struggling to survive. The Japanese/Chinese/Portuguese/Haole/Filipino 
voices of her tough, honest, and touching characters will show you a 
truer Oahu than any tour could offer."—Molly Giles, author, Rough
Translations

"Set in a flawed paradise, this is a fascinating gallery of women 
afflicted by 'bad taste in men,' who sometimes achieve strange 
victories. Beautifully executed."—Ian MacMillan, author, Village 
of a Million Spirits

"Gorgeous tales of skeptics in paradise, gazing on these 
juxtapositions of profane beauty and splendid decay."—Michael
Martone, author, The Blue Guide to Indiana

A new edition of "an American classic. It belongs on everyone's 
American bookshelf."—Boston Globe