Posted on: Monday, March 11, 2002

Success bemuses Honolulu author

By Wanda A. Adams
Advertiser book editor

Honolulu writer Kent M. Keith is saying "nice" a lot these days.

It's "nice" that his book, "The Paradoxical Commandments," originally published by Maui-based Inner Ocean books, has been picked up by mega-publishers Penguin Putnam, with a tidy $300,000 advance and the promise of a big rollout in May.

It's "nice" that his parents, sitting over their morning coffee in the San Francisco Bay Area Friday, looked up to see a story about their son on a local a.m. talk show; that "Good Morning America," and "The Today Show" have called; and that he's getting e-mails from old friends (some of whom he's having a little trouble placing).

"I'm sorry," he said from his office at the Nu'uanu YMCA, where he is director of communications and development, "I'm saying 'nice' a lot. I don't know what to say. I'm kind of stunned, actually."

In November, when Keith was interviewed by The Advertiser, Inner Ocean's Roger Jellinek predicted that the "Paradoxical Commandments" would reach far beyond Hawai'i. Penned when Keith was 19, then expanded for the book, they suggest that we love others and do the right thing "anyway," despite all the logical arguments to the contrary.