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The Honolulu Advertiser

Posted on: Sunday, June 19, 2005

BOOKS
Reflections on a clueless life

By Wanda Adams
Advertiser Books Editor

In his third novel, "Bolohead Row," the front-cover blurb tells us: "(Chris) McKinney again takes us into Honolulu's subterranean world of strip bars, massage parlors, gambling dens and drug addictions."

Great, I'm thinking as I crack the brand-new cover, I didn't want to go there the first time, in "Tattoo"(which won a Hawaii Publishers Association award for excellence in literature in 2000), or the second time, in "Queen of Tears." But since it's McKinney, a fine writer and the deserved winner of an Elliot Cades Award for Literature (2000), I suspend reluctance and dive in.

Charlie Keaweaimoku, the novel's voice, is neither particularly likable nor admirable. He's all but rootless — a part-Hawaiian who doesn't care about his heritage and doesn't even know who his aunties are. He's a drunk and half a drug addict. He can't keep a relationship going and, despite a business degree, he's wasting his time in a worthless, dead-end job.

Still, he grows on you. Though he describes himself as "bland as poi," Charlie is both intelligent and thoughtful, with a wry if detached view of life, and it's easy to enjoy being inside his head for the length of a novel, even if half the time you want to slap that head for being so clueless. "The moment when you realize your life resembles Looney Tunes can be damn funny," he says as the novel comes to a close.

The novel covers no more than the span of a couple of chaotic weeks that all but do Charlie in. It seems to take Charlie forever to figure out that:

A. He is making a big mistake trusting his batu-smoking ex-con stepsister and B. It's time to grow up, whatever that means and however it can be accomplished, given the shambles of his family history.

It's also time to leave Bolohead Row, the phrase that refers to the seedier sections of Kaka'ako, Ke'eaumoku and Ala Moana, where hostess bars and strip joints thrive and tables are lined with gawking men, their heads tipped back to guzzle drinks and ogle women, their bald spots gleaming under the artificial lights.

McKinney is exceptionally skilled at imagining compelling characters, who worm their way into the consciousness of even reluctant readers like me (who'll take rose-covered fantasy over RL — real life, as Charlie's computer-geek brother calls it — every time). If his aim is to provoke self-righteous middle-class Islanders into awareness and understanding of (and even some sympathy or empathy for) the folks who populate Bolohead Row, he succeeds.

Yes, Charlie drinks all night, patronizes hostess bars and massage parlors and stumbles into work on two hours' sleep with a hangover and no memory of half of what he's said or done. But his cluelessness, and even naivete, strike a chord. How many times have you come late and painfully to the understanding that you've been badly duped by someone you cared about? How many of us have trusted family members or friends beyond all reason — and watched with frustration as our parents continue in their trust even after we've declared ourselves "over it"?

Charlie's skeptical view about the state of Hawaiian culture is at times exaggerated ("the only Hawaiian music left was played during the kahiko competition at the Merrie Monarch") and may anger some. But there's some truth laced through his often odd ideas: "I think the things that were considered contemporary Hawaiian were the very things that were killing Hawaiians: ice, jail, the ukulele, the Republican party, and mayonnaise on beef stew."

Charlie walks around asking questions no one around him can answer. What does this Hawaiian song mean? Is there any such thing as a Hawaiian or is the Hawaiian Renaissance just misguided nostalgia? And what is the point of all this, anyway?

Charlie's sister's philosophy of life can be summed up in her favorite phrase, "No worry, beef curry." She can live this way because she proves to be a person who can swim through a sewer and come out smelling like pikake while everyone around her gets splattered. His mom, who has a drinking problem herself, thinks life, the real thing, is like "Life," the board game — whoever has the most money at the end of the game wins. His friend Lance outlines "The Power of Indifference," the wisdom of not caring about anyone because no one cares about you and none of it matters. He is reminded that life is always "6-5 — because you gotta pay the house."

But Charlie, despite a suspicion that he'll never find anything that really floats his boat, keeps getting up in the morning, thinking hard and asking unanswerable questions.

This book isn't perfect, marred by sloppy copy and occasional loose writing. And in places the reader's interest in Charlie flags as his musings move in wearying, self-involved circles.

Still, "Bolohead Row" is well written and potentially very important for its ability to reflect — and, one hopes, reach — young adults who might benefit from the warnings implicit in the wreckage of Charlie's life, and the hope engendered by the turn he appears to be taking when the book ends.