Daughter of Moloka'i by Alan Brennert

"'It will be all right, Okasan,' [Taizo] said with a gentle reassurance he did not truly feel. 'We will gaman, and all will be right in the end.' 
Gaman was a word rooted in Buddhism that meant enduring the seemingly unbearable with patience and dignity. 
        -from the novel

Perhaps you will remember the Page Turners just read Moloka'i in May. It received a 4.5 average rating, the highest of any book of 2020 so far. I gave it a 4; not so enjoyable in parts, but I learned so much and the writing was excellent. The author's research was thorough and impressive.

When I could not get our June book from the library right away, I requested this novel, what I thought was a sequel. In "A Conversation with Alan Brennert" the author says, "I began to see this not as a sequel per se, but as a companion or parallel tale that serves as a complement to Moloka'i: together they form one large, overarching, interconnected story." He says it took a decade and suggestions from fans of the first novel and his agent to finally lead him to write this one.

The first novel told the story of Rachel, a woman who spent much of her life, separated from her family in a leper colony on the island of Moloka'i. Toward the end of that novel, Rachel is cured of her disease and is able to reunite with some of her family, including her daughter Ruth, who was taken from her and her husband almost immediately after her birth to prevent her contracting leprosy.

Daughter of Moloka'i begins with Ruth's story: taken to a Catholic orphanage, adopted by Japanese immigrants, moved with her family to California and then, sadly, sent to Japanese relocation centers during WWII. The irony is obvious---Rachel gives Ruth up thinking she will be free and Ruth ends up being essentially ripped from her home and kept interned for several years, along with her family. Although this was a disturbing part of the book, it was interesting to me because I have a Japanese-American friend who was in one of the camps as a child and I found myself comparing what he has described to the events of the novel.

After Rachel finds Ruth and they begin to establish a relationship, the last third of the novel interweaves the end of Rachel's story with Ruth's as they become true 'Ohana (family). I found this part to be somewhat anticlimactic. I rate Daughter of Moloka'i a 4, as I did the first one. I especially love the author's descriptions of Hawaii of which I have beautiful memories.

Lastly, as I was reading this novel there were weeks of Black Lives Matter protests and demonstrations going on. The author says, almost prophetically,  "Sadly, it seems we are never as enlightened, as inoculated from fear and racism, as we might wish we were." He was speaking of the treatment of the Japanese in the 1940's and other injustices such as slavery and abuse of Native Americans. His statement seems true today.