Lava: A Novel

by Pamela Ball

Overview

Memory and desire—and how the two can be mistaken for each other—are the themes of this magical novel set in Hilo on the Big Island of Hawaii. At the novel's beginning, Kinau says of her husband, gone five years and with another woman, "I could not tell if I was more possessed by Ivan's absence than by the man himself." But then a bizarre incident brings Ivan back, and a new chain of passion and leavetaking inevitably spins itself out.

Kinau's life is shaped by the stories and feral energy of her mother (a woman of many husbands) and by the always hovering and jealous presence of the gods. Revenge for a boy's accidental death calls for a bounty on sharks and results in a fishing frenzy. Tidal waves have wreaked havoc, and will again. A volcano carries its own portentous message. And finally, there is Hawaii itself, source of loss, risk, and possibly salvation.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780393333367
Publisher:	Norton, W. W. & Company, Inc.
Publication date:	01/01/1980
Pages:	196
Product dimensions:	5.00(w) x 8.00(h) x (d)

What People are Saying About This

Lisa Shea

"Lava is an exquisite first novel. Pamela Ball has the rare eye of a poet and the ravenous heart of a storyteller."

Andrea Barrett

"Love -- the kind that can't be cured, but only endured -- moves through this mysterious and haunting novel."

Bob Shacochis

"A beautiful, sensuous, volitile novel, press your eyes with dormant passion, filled with fire."

Editorial Reviews

The unpredictable-tsunamis, volcanoes, women-and the predictable-sharks, gods, men-are juxtaposed in a fine tension in this timeless first novel. Ball is a master of contrast, filling her Hawaiian landscape with orchids and sulfur, waterfalls and blood. Five years ago, Ivan left his wife, Kinau, for Victoria, a wealthy mainland woman he had soothed in a stalled elevator in the hotel where he had been in charge of maintenance. Victoria's troubled teenage son, Nicholas, comes to Hilo on the Big Island, visits Kinau, foolishly jumps off a fishing boat, and is devoured by sharks. Ivan returns to Hilo to offer a bounty on sharks, setting off a killing frenzy-and a new version of the passion he once had with Kinau. Kinau learns that, like a shark, Ivan has to keep moving while all else is still; she learns, too, the folly of trying to bring back the past. As narrator, Kinau is a complex and original character, melding myth and gunfire inherited from the mother she failed to save in the tsunami that first brought her together with Ivan. Ball's prose has a visceral intensity, an exotic aura and a surreal edge. Like a volcano erupting underwater, this novel wields a natural, unseen power. Foreign rights sold in Germany; author tour. (Apr.)

Publishers Weekly - Publisher's Weekly

Five years ago, Kinau's husband, Ivan, left her and the big island of Hawaii for the mainland and another woman, and Kinau is still obsessed with his absence. When he returns after the gruesome death of his stepson, Kinau must confront not only the man Ivan has become but the memory of her mother-a woman who tore through husbands like a shark at feeding time-and the gods and ghosts that inhabit the island. Finally, Kinau is able to let go of the past. Ball's excellent first novel is a sad and mystical tale, recalling a world like Alice Hoffman's where humans and magic coexist. Her narrative flows as smoothly as the ocean currents and the sharks that inhabit her story. Highly recommended. [Previewed in Prepub Alert, LJ 12/96.]-Ellen Flexman, Indianapolis-Marion Cty. Public Lib., Ind.

Library Journal

Passion, once cooled, undergoes irreversible changes—so runs the theme of Hawaii-born, Florida-based Ball's insightful if somewhat overextended debut.

Kinau keeps busy in her greenhouses on the slopes above Hilo, still trying after five years to forget her husband Ivan, who ran off to the mainland with a rich woman he'd rescued from a broken hotel elevator. When the woman's son appears on Kinau's doorstep, however, the past comes rushing back, and when the teenager manages to get himself killed by a shark a day later, the tragedy insures that the past and present will collide. Ivan flies in after hearing the news, and Kinau takes him back, even though it's clear that he has greatly changed. This new Ivan puts a bounty on sharks, so that their bodies pile up in Hilo's streets as fishermen from all over the island go into a killing frenzy; this Ivan refuses to take care of the boy's cremation when his body is eventually recovered, leaving that task to Kinau; this Ivan goes guiltily back and forth between his women, the boy's mother having joined him after he proves reluctant to return to the mainland. Only when he does the unthinkable, bringing the wrath of a nearby volcano down on the islanders, does Kinau finally accept that Ivan is an angry, unstable, unreliable figure. And like her mother before her, who made sure that her men (Kinau's father included) hit the road when she was done with them, she sends Ivan a message in no uncertain terms.

A probing tale of a woman scorned, Hawaiian-style, with a rich texturing of emotions, but also with historical (Captain Cook) and quasi-mythical (shark men) elements tacked on that are more affected than effective.

Kirkus Reviews