West of Then: A Mother, a Daughter, and a Journey Past Paradise

From Publishers Weekly
First-time memoirist Smith has spent most of her adult life on the East Coast, swapping the palm trees and leis of her Hawaiian childhood for subways and argyle sweaters. Not that she can be blamed for trying to distance herself from her roots. A descendant of an upper-class, white family, Smith's drug-addicted mother abandoned Smith when she was seven. Their family's saga resembles "a Faulkner sketch that had stumbled off to Honolulu. Plumeria instead of magnolia, but the setpieces were the same...." Although geographically separated from her wandering mother, Smith maintains a fierce attachment to her that ultimately brings her back to Hawaii. She draws on memories to tell of the search for her mother, who, homeless and using, disappears in 2002. The narrative dips back into turning points of Smith's upbringing to illustrate the experience of adoring a mother who often abandons her child, sometimes willfully, and sometimes because she's simply become distracted by a new lover or an old drug habit. Smith masterfully recounts Hawaii's history; the rise and fall of her family's fortunes parallel Hawaii's development. And Smith's Hawaiian experience differs from that of most nonwhite Hawaiians, resulting in an intriguing read. Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.


From Bookmarks Magazine
Smith’s first memoir intertwines different stories that pit her memories and experiences against the larger backdrop of Hawaii’s history. Smith offers evocative descriptions of the state, from its sugarcane history and cultural clashes to its unparalleled beauty. A thin line separates this beauty from Smith’s painful attempts to reconnect with her mother. Critics agree that her account is in turns intelligent, sad, and dazzling. Yet for all its merits, a few critics thought Smith somewhat naïve in her fierce, nonjudgmental loyalty to her mother, and her mother—for all her problems—somewhat dull. Even with its charm, See of the Washington Post called the memoir a "sorry fable of how futile it is to ask for love from a person who has none to give." Copyright © 2004 Phillips & Nelson Media, Inc.


From Booklist
Smith has come home to Hawaii to find her mother. Karen Brewster Morgan is many things: a bona fide Mayflower descendant, a member of one of Hawaii's founding families, an aging flower child, and a junkie. She's also homeless, sleeping beneath cardboard in a seedy Honolulu park with a name that translates to "small child." Along with the obvious paradox of a hellish existence in a heavenly environment, the irony of the park's name is not lost on Smith. Her mother evinces an infantile helplessness and a feckless disregard for any social convention as she focuses on getting a fix and finding a man. And now she has disappeared. Smith recounts her lifelong quest for her mother from the viewpoint of the 32-year-old woman she is now, and introduces the reader to the child who was constantly uprooted and finally forsaken. Flawlessly connecting her personal history and her mother's deterioration with that of Hawaii itself, Smith blends reportorial objectivity with the baring of her soul to sublime effect. Smith's metamorphosis from abandoned waif to accomplished writer is electrifying, made all the more compelling by her poignant and relentless longing for her mother's love. Carol Haggas
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved


Review
Susan Orlean author of The Orchid Thief This is a harrowing, heartbreaking exploration of love and longing, set in the sweet-and-sour world of Hawaii -- a post-modern paradise lost.

Alexandra Fuller author of Don't Let's Go to the Dogs Tonight Tara Bray Smith's words lift off the page, hot and lucid, like the light of the islands she loves. Without the smallest glimmer of judgment, and often with sly wit, Smith tells the story of her life, at the core of which is her relationship with her brilliant, broken mother. Far, far more than a memoir -- this is an anthem for hope and survival wrapped in startling, sometimes surprising poetry. Read this book and then keep it close to you. You'll want to read it again and again.

FROM THE PUBLISHER

"At the center of West of Then is Karen Morgan - island flower, fifth-generation haole (white) Hawaiian, Mayflower descendant - now living on the streets of downtown Honolulu. Despite her recklessness, Karen inspires fierce loyalty and love in her three daughters. When she goes missing in the spring of 2002, Tara, the eldest, sets out to find and hopefully save her mother. Her journey explores what you give up when you try to renounce your past, whether personal, familial, or historical, and what you gain when you confront it." By turns tough and touching, Smith's modern detective story unravels the rich history of the fiftieth state and the realities of contemporary Hawaii - its sizable homeless population, its drug subculture - as well as its generous, diverse humanity and astonishing beauty. In this land of so many ghosts, the author's search for her mother becomes a reckoning with herself, her family, and with the meaning of home.

FROM THE CRITICS

The New Yorker

When Smith was a child in Honolulu, her drug-prone mother, Karen, would vanish for hours at a time; when Smith was thirty-two, Karen, now homeless and a hopeless addict, went missing for several months. In this memoir, Smith combs the parks, rehab clinics, and red-light district of Honolulu for her mother, examining not only Karen’s descent into prostitution and heroin but also her family’s genteel past on Hawaii’s sugarcane plantations. Her sense of place and of history amplifies the narrative, though at times she relies too heavily on the well-worn trope of corrupted paradise. She has a sharp descriptive eye—a housing subdivision consists of “concrete-block ranch houses xeroxed onto freshly paved streets”—and a strong voice, which, though it occasionally shades into portentousness, honestly plumbs the guilt, rage, love, and pity that she feels toward her mother.

Publishers Weekly

First-time memoirist Smith has spent most of her adult life on the East Coast, swapping the palm trees and leis of her Hawaiian childhood for subways and argyle sweaters. Not that she can be blamed for trying to distance herself from her roots. A descendant of an upper-class, white family, Smith's drug-addicted mother abandoned Smith when she was seven. Their family's saga resembles "a Faulkner sketch that had stumbled off to Honolulu. Plumeria instead of magnolia, but the setpieces were the same...." Although geographically separated from her wandering mother, Smith maintains a fierce attachment to her that ultimately brings her back to Hawaii. She draws on memories to tell of the search for her mother, who, homeless and using, disappears in 2002. The narrative dips back into turning points of Smith's upbringing to illustrate the experience of adoring a mother who often abandons her child, sometimes willfully, and sometimes because she's simply become distracted by a new lover or an old drug habit. Smith masterfully recounts Hawaii's history; the rise and fall of her family's fortunes parallel Hawaii's development. And Smith's Hawaiian experience differs from that of most nonwhite Hawaiians, resulting in an intriguing read. Agent, Richard Abate. (Oct.) Forecast: A first serial in the New Yorker, a nine-city author tour and national ads should put this on the map. Copyright 2004 Reed Business Information.

Library Journal

Smith's debut is yet another memoir of family dysfunction. Her mother, Karen, is a Mayflower descendant and a fifth-generation white Hawaiian. Always fond of men, drugs, and alcohol, Karen had an abortion, three daughters, and multiple marriages followed by divorces in rapid succession. Smith and her sisters learned early to watch over their mother. Despite Karen's absence at a legal hearing where her father and his second wife were awarded custody, Smith, along with her sisters, remained fiercely protective of her. In 2002, Smith was settling into a normal life in New York when she got a call from her sister. Their mother had been missing for several weeks, had married a fellow junkie, and had not contacted any of the usual social services. Once again, Smith set out to find her mother in the hope of saving her from her worst impulses. Though the setting is exotic, Smith's journey tale is all too familiar. Recommended only as interest warrants. [See Prepub Alert, LJ 6/15/04.] Pam Kingsbury, Univ. of North Alabama, Florence Communications Copyright 2004 Reed Business Information.

Kirkus Reviews