In her acclaimed first novel "The Descendants," Kaui Hart Hemmings offers that rarest of Hawai'i literary protagonists: the empowered, enfranchised, unmarginalized, soon-to-be extremely wealthy middle-aged man.

Not that Matthew King, self-described member of "one of those Hawai'i families who make money off of luck and dead people," is without his conflicts. In the disconcerting absence of his petty, egomaniacal and now comatose wife, Joanie, Matt is struggling to close the distance that has grown between himself and his daughters, recovering drug addict Alex and disturbed cyberbully Scottie. Matt also has to confront the reality that his wife was having an affair, as well as the other man involved.

As all of this unfolds, King also bears the responsibility of choosing a buyer for the expansive land holdings about to be freed upon the dissolution of the family trust, a decision closely monitored by his surrounding community.

The novel - which was recently optioned to Fox Spotlight for a film to be directed by Alexander Payne ("Sideways") - offers a glimpse into a Hawai'i rarely depicted in novels and other popular culture. It might be considered one of the most notable developments in contemporary Hawai'i literature if, in fact, its author bought in to that association.

"I haven't read any Hawai'i literature and I don't consider myself as a Hawai'i writer," says Hemmings, who left Hawai'i shortly after graduating from Punahou and now lives in San Francisco with her husband, attorney Andy Lautenbach, and their 2-year-old daughter, Eleanor.

"When I lived in Hawai'i, I didn't think about Hawaiian-ness or local-ness," Hemmings said. "This is a just a novel about a family that happens to be set in Hawai'i. It's a story of a father raising his kids, and Hawai'i just comes out organically in how he's seen and in his interactions."

A DESCENDANT

By her own wry admission, Kaui Hart Hemmings is "one of them."

She means it as shorthand for "Punahou graduate" and all the implications, real and caricatured, that the designation carries in Hawai'i. And on the surface at least, Hemmings fits the archetype.

Like Matt King, Hemmings comes from well-established missionary and Native Hawaiian stock. Her grandmother was part of the Wilcox missionary family. Her grandfather was the late federal judge Martin Pence. And her stepfather is longtime state Sen. Fred Hemmings.

Yet while Hemmings is proud of her family legacies, her emergence as a significant contemporary writer is as individually inspired as the creation of any of her characters.

Hemmings holds a BA in English from Colorado College and an MFA in writing from Sarah Lawrence College in New York.

Having grown up on a steady diet of John Irving, Lorrie Moore and John Cheever, Hemmings said, she had characters and voices to share but didn't yet know how to craft a compelling story when she entered graduate school.

"I learned some things from reading, but going to school bought me time to read contemporary novels," she said. "Sarah Lawrence was really nurturing and supportive. I needed that, and after that, I needed something harsher."

With that, Hemmings headed across the country on a Wallace Stegner fellowship to study creative writing at Stanford. Working under esteemed short-story and memoir writer Tobias Wolff, and surrounded by accomplished peers (Hemmings said she was the only one in her group who had not been published), Hemmings recognized "the need to step up."

And she did.

Her 2005 short-story collection, "House of Thieves," was lauded by critics for its clear, original voice and unflinching honesty, the recognized hallmarks of Hemmings' writing. And while many felt compelled to comment on the obvious juxtaposition of paradisiacal backdrop and desperate, mundane lives, others recognized and appreciated the tight craftsmanship of Hemmings' storytelling, particularly in the story "The Minor Wars," from which "The Descendants" was derived.

WRITE WHAT YOU KNOW

Hemmings wrote "The Descendants" in just six months, a remarkable feat considering the period overlapped the birth of her daughter.

She said the rigors of early motherhood have, in fact, been beneficial to her writing.

"I get so much more done now with a child than I did when I was in my 20s and didn't have a child," she said, laughing.

Almost all of "The Minor Wars" is contained in the novel, and the basic plot of the 22-page story provided a framework.

The process was eased further by the natural affinity between Hemmings' spare, unsentimental writing style and the voice of the Matthew King character.

New York Times book reviewer Joanna Kavenna, among others, noted Hemmings' use of a masculine focal character and questioned whether Hemmings and other contemporary female writers are turning to male protagonists as a way to avoid being pigeonholed as "women writers."

As writers from Willa Cather to Annie Proulx have shown, the tradition of female authors penning credible male protagonists is long and distinguished. To Hemmings, however, it's a nonissue.

"It's how I write," she said. "I didn't necessarily create (the voice) for him. It just felt right.

"Every person is different. It's not about a masculine or feminine psychology; it's human psychology. I think it's just as much of a leap to go into the mind of a 40-year-old woman or a 10-year-old girl."

And, clearly, Hemmings values the fiction aspect of fiction writing.

Despite the surface similarities between herself and her characters, "The Descendants" is pure fiction, not thinly disguised autobiography. The Hawai'i of the novel is a fictionalized Hawai'i, with fine details that add credibility to the illusion without interpreting the source. Its characters grow out of local archetype but are given substance with precise quirks and individual characteristics.

"It's just much more enjoyable for me to write from a different point of view," Hemmings said. "As a writer, I like to write what I know and what I want to know. I already see the world through my eyes every day. I'm a better writer when I have some distance."

And in fact, none of Hemmings' Hawai'i-based stories were written in Hawai'i. And it may be a while before Hemmings again sets a story here. Her husband recently got a job in Honolulu, and the family plans to move here in August.

What will Hemmings work on when she returns to Hawai'i? A novel set in Colorado.

"When you look at something close up, it begins to blur," Hemmings said. "I need to step back to see things clearly, and then to imagine things."

Reach Michael Tsai at mtsai@honoluluadvertiser.com.