Book Club
A glimpse at the dark side of a Kahala childhood
By Wanda A. Adams
Advertiser Books Editor
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Although it evokes a certain time and social stratum in the Islands, Laurie Ames Birnsteel's memoir isn't about growing up in Hawai'i. It's about growing up.
And although the title and breezy cover blurbs might make this seem like another soft-focus reminiscence about the good old days in the Islands, this is no romp in the sun. It is the painful and disturbing story of a fractured family. There's humor here, yes, but it's of the kind that hides the pain.
Birnsteel's late mother, Dot, is portrayed as a woman of extraordinary spirit and independence who lived life exactly as she wanted to, brandy glass firmly in hand. She takes lovers and lavishes money on them, gets blackballed from the Outrigger Canoe Club, espouses oddball theories about all manner of things and lets her three children all but raise themselves. This last is partly because she is too busy with her various manic pursuits, partly because she believes children learn to be self-reliant by being left on their own.
The man Birnsteel thinks of as her father is equally absent.
Theirs is a life of privilege because of Dot's family money — houses in Kahala, riding lessons, paddling, Punahou, the cotillion. But the only remotely stable figure appears to have been Birnsteel's maternal grandmother, who lived on the Mainland most of the time. The adults around the three children seem to spend most of their time drinking cocktails, getting involved with inappropriate people and saying crushing things to their children and each other.
Birnsteel, who has lived in Louisville, Ky., for most of her adult life, is smart enough to tell the story of her girlhood with no hint of the insight she later gains into the events of her life. Her point of view is that of someone who pretends not to care about her bizarre upbringing while desperately longing for normalcy and stability. She spends a great deal of time at neighbors' homes, envying the very banality of their lives. (Later, she finds out that one family she considered the pinnacle of normalcy was living in fear of a physically abusive father.)
Birnsteel is a good writer, nakedly candid, and tells her story in jerky vignettes that sometimes leave the reader a little at sea, but also give a sense of being inside her head.
At times, Birnsteel's mother appears to be a monster to rival Joan Crawford in "Mommy Dearest." At others, she comes off as quirky and charming, fragile and vulnerable. Still, it is hard to get to the place where Birnsteel is: a place in which she can actually regret not having said "Thank you" to her mother, who died in 1984.
It's important to place this story in its context: a social mileu that just didn't talk about some things, where appearances mattered more than realities, where the truth could not be spoken. A time when nobody thought twice about having "one for the road." And a time when there was a different understanding of the nature of child abuse.
It was easier and nicer then to portray people like Dot as "one of a kind, a real original" — especially if they were rich. Reading the cover blurbs, which refer to "the author's humorous and poignant attempts to tame her unconventional mother," it seems as though there's still a tendency to characterize outrageous and damaging behavior as mere eccentricity.
But this book is most of all a testament to a child's ability to love a parent through anything, and a woman's courage in being willing to forgive and let go.
"Kahala" is available over the Internet from the publisher for $11.97 plus $4 shipping; www.insomniac.com/mckenna, or it can be special-ordered through any bookstore (ISBN O-9713659-1-1; distributed by Ingram).
