House of Many Gods
by Kiana Davenport
From Kiana Davenport, the
bestselling author of Song of the Exile and Shark Dialogues, comes
another mesmerizing novel about her people and her islands. Told in
spellbinding and mythic prose, House of Many Gods is a deeply complex
and provocative love story set against the background of Hawaii and
Russia. Interwoven throughout with the indelible portrait of a native
Hawaiian family struggling against poverty, drug wars, and the
increasing military occupation of their sacred lands. Progressing
from the 1960s to the turbulent present, the novel begins on the island
of O’ahu and centers on Ana, abandoned by her mother as a child. Raised
by her extended family on the “lawless” Wai’anae coast, west of
Honolulu, Ana, against all odds, becomes a physician. While tending
victims of Hurricane ‘Iniki on the neighboring island of Kaua’i, she
meets Nikolai, a Russian filmmaker with a violent and tragic past, who
can confront reality only through his unique prism of lies. Yet he is
dedicated to recording the ecological horrors in his motherland and
across the Pacific. As their lives slowly and inextricably
intertwine, Ana and Nikolai’s story becomes an odyssey that spans
decades and sweeps the reader from rural Hawaii to the forbidding Arctic
wastes of Russia; from the poverty-stricken Wai’anae coast to the
glittering harshness of “new Moscow” and the haunting, faded beauty of
St. Petersburg. With stunning narrative inventiveness, Davenport has
created a timeless epic of loss and remembrance, of the search for
family and identity, and, ultimately, of the redemptive power of love.
bestselling author of Song of the Exile and Shark Dialogues, comes
another mesmerizing novel about her people and her islands. Told in
spellbinding and mythic prose, House of Many Gods is a deeply complex
and provocative love story set against the background of Hawaii and
Russia. Interwoven throughout with the indelible portrait of a native
Hawaiian family struggling against poverty, drug wars, and the
increasing military occupation of their sacred lands. Progressing
from the 1960s to the turbulent present, the novel begins on the island
of O’ahu and centers on Ana, abandoned by her mother as a child. Raised
by her extended family on the “lawless” Wai’anae coast, west of
Honolulu, Ana, against all odds, becomes a physician. While tending
victims of Hurricane ‘Iniki on the neighboring island of Kaua’i, she
meets Nikolai, a Russian filmmaker with a violent and tragic past, who
can confront reality only through his unique prism of lies. Yet he is
dedicated to recording the ecological horrors in his motherland and
across the Pacific. As their lives slowly and inextricably
intertwine, Ana and Nikolai’s story becomes an odyssey that spans
decades and sweeps the reader from rural Hawaii to the forbidding Arctic
wastes of Russia; from the poverty-stricken Wai’anae coast to the
glittering harshness of “new Moscow” and the haunting, faded beauty of
St. Petersburg. With stunning narrative inventiveness, Davenport has
created a timeless epic of loss and remembrance, of the search for
family and identity, and, ultimately, of the redemptive power of love.