“A writer who can bring you into another world is always interesting, but a writer like Kaui Hart Hemmings, whose engaging stories transport the reader with grace, intelligence, and wit, is a cause for attention, congratulations, and celebration. Her impressive arrival on the literary scene provides a first-class departure for readers.” Peter Cameron

Like the fierce, powerful, young characters that appear in her stories, Kaui Hart Hemmings demands our immediate attention. In this exciting debut collection of short stories, Hemmings establishes herself as one of the most original, unapologetic, and honest young voices to come out of the next batch of fiction writers. Hemmings’s tart, confident voice plunges us headfirst into the unfamiliar world of a Hawaii far from the tourist track, providing revealing glimpses of the island’s divisive racial and class issues as well as the proud heritage of kings and warriors and the legacy of colonialists and missionaries. Her unceremonious dealing with issues like drugs, sex, and abandonment, and her entirely unselfconscious prose allow her stories to wash effortlessly over us like an ocean wave, always leaving behind an unusual shell–something to ponder that is fascinating and true.