Squid-Eye

By Ian MacMillan
Stories about life in Hawai'i. The tensions of love, race, cultural differences and the magic of spear fishing, where hunting for squid may lead to special powers of understanding the truth. MacMillan, winner of the Associated Writing Programs Award for Short Fiction, The Pushcart Prize, The O. Henry Award and Best American Short Stories Award, has been called "arguably one of Hawai'i's finest living authors." "Squid Eye" shows you why.
ISBN 0-9653971-7-3 $14.95
Buy the book at

REVIEW EXCERPT:

"Here's a book that brings you eye to eye with life in Hawaii - not the flowery, painted-over stuff, but the real nitty-gritty. With the author spearfishing as the metaphor by which stories flow, you'll encounter ideas on love, race, cultural strife - not to mention the often mentioned rewards of spearfishing.

The reader is not spared the graphic details of real life, nor is the author overly considerate, so as to cause you to miss some truth. The language is not delicate - rather it illustrates, in the raw, the life of the characters portrayed.

One of Hawaii's finest living authors and winner of an O.Henry Award and The Hawaii Award for Literature, MacMillan gives you insight into life in the Islands. Sometimes you just need to peer through the eye of a squid to see life the way it really is."

-- Wanda Adams, Honolulu Advertiser, 10/10/99

REVIEW EXCERPT:

Squid Eye offers nine stories of Windward life, from spear-fishing by the Mokuluas, to a flirtation at Daieai, to a search-and-rescue mission on the Pali during a hurricane.

The title piece (Squid Eye) centers around a homeless family, living out of a van in a parking lot by Makapu'u Beach. MacMillan tells it from the viewpoint of the teen-aged son, a diver with a gift for spotting octopus on the ocean floor. But catching he'e (squid) was not enough to hold things together:

Everyday they would drive into Kailua to drop him off at the intermediate school and pick him up, and shop for chips and canned food and jerky and fruit, and vodka, but they were almost out of money now.

On the trip into town Darrell would lean up so that, sitting on the floor behind his father, he could look at the polo field in Waimanalo as they passed. There in the shade of ironwood trees near the road were horses, a couple of them white, and white ones were supposed to be lucky. A girl from the mainland had told him that in school. All you had to do was see one, lick your thumb and then press it into the palm of your hand, then bump the spot with your fist, and he started doing that, thinking that what they needed now was a little luck.

Macmillan has won several awards for his short stories. He teaches English at the University of Hawaii and has lived in Hawaii for 34 years. Anoai Press published "Squid Eye" as well as his earlier short-story collection, "Exiles From Time."

-- Kailua Sun Press, 9/17/99

Interested in riding the waves? Surf over to Planet Malibu.

ANOAI PRESS
3349-A Anoai Place
Honolulu, Hawaii 96822
PHONE (808) 988-6109
FAX (808) 988-1119
EMAIL Kukui@lava.net

Click HERE for an ORDER FORM

Click HERE to return to Anoai's Home Page

Aloha!