Books: "Everything to the Sea" By Alicia Upano

 

Everything to the Sea

By Alicia Upano

William Morrow; hardcover; $30.00

Alicia Upano was born and raised in Hawaii, and she currently lives in O'ahu with her family. She received the Poets & Writers Maureen Egen Writers Exchange Award Hawai'i, the James Jones First Novel Fellowship, and a Bread Loaf-Rona Jaffe Scholarship. Her short fiction has appeared in The Massachusetts Review, The Southern Review, The Best Peace Fiction: A Social Justice Anthology, and more.

Everything to the Sea is Upano's debut novel, a breathtaking love story and coming-of-age tale that spans years and shores after a sudden tsunami devastates the island of Hawai'i, cutting short a young couple's budding romance.

Jane is home for one final summer,and she is working and saving up cash for her senior year of college before leaving her island town behind forever. At first, she doesn't remember Kenji, but it doesn't take long before he's someone she can't forget. 

Kenji is a Hilo boy with a square jaw and a dimple in his cheek, and to him, she is Janie, with her nose buried in her old high school sketchbooks. 

Jane convinces herself it's only a fling, a perfect summer before achieving her dream of being an architect and moving to the continental United States.

A tsunami then hits and sweeps their families out to sea, and their affair breaks with the weight of grief, and they're pulled in opposite directions. Kenji remains in Hawai'i and is bound by duty to rebuild their hometown, and Jane, who is shattered by the loss, follows her best friend to California.

For seven years, there is an ocean between them, until Jane and Kenji meet on another coast. It is all part of story of two young people as they come of age, fall in love, forge new families, and try to find their way back together.

Behind the Book:  By Alicia Upano (Provided by HarperCollins):

Everything to the Sea is a love story, yes, but also a story of catastrophe set in contemporary times. Beyond the world of the novel, several real-world catastrophes absent from these pages bookended its writing. I began drafting at the onset of a global pandemic, and by the time this book found its final shape - the characters realized, the architecture sound - a fire destroyed thousands of structures and killed over 100 on Maui, where my family first set foot on Hawaiian soil nearly 100 years old.

As I write this, a week has passed since my partner collected our children from their Honolulu schools - I was traveling - following a coastal evacuation after an 8.8-magnitude earthquake struck Kamchatka. It was the world's largest seismic event since the 9.1-magnitude quake in Tohoku, Japan, which caused a death toll of nearly 20,000. How can one not obsess over this world, its power revealing our fragility - the water can swallow us, the earth can crack beneath our feet, fire can scorch our homes, and the air we breathe - for a time - could kill us?

Early drafts were written quarantined in dark hours while my toddler slept, as I tried not to panic over the possibility of giving birth to my second child alone in a hospital on lockdown. I'd started a novel intellectually curious about climate change set in the near-future, understanding that my island home would be more susceptible to environmental threats (rising sea levels, for starters). Yet I kept returning to two minor characters from Hilo, a town long accustomed to nature's toll as the tsunami capital of the U.S. The possibilities of the Hilo setting intrigued me: Amid omnipresent peril, how do we connect and disconnect, treasure and abandon, embrace and mourn? How do we navigate a future we can't possibly predict? Could we rebuild, and if so, how? The near future was now, or perhaps, always was.

And so Jane and Kenhi became central to a new narrative designed around the stages of a tsunami. This metaphor, inherently dramatic, became four discrete parts of the novel. Writing became one thing I could hold onto, and it also offered relief in a grave time - what is more irresistible and life affirming than a love story?

With each part and draft completed, my home and universe shifted. My water broke as I wailed through a surgical mask. The world re-opened. From the privilege of safety, I watched Maui struggle to rebuild. Eventually I would sit in a New York City hotel room, tuned to a feed of Hanalei Bay, some 5,000 miles away, waiting for a wave and aching for my family. It was, thankfully, anti-climactic. Yes it's a grim comfort, each close call a reminder of risk.

In the novel, a reporter asks Kenji about the fascination with natural disasters, and he says, 'They're big events, beyond our control. It reminds us nature is greater than us, that life can be random. But also, there's a fascination with its singularity. Most of us will live long lives, with twists and turns and loves and losses. But with a natural disaster, it's every loss you can imagine compressed into one moment that changes you forever. You must endure the loss and rebuild."

Everything to the Sea crystallizes our heroes' losses early in the novel, and we follow Jane and Kenji through their long arcs of longing and grief, repairing and reclaiming their lives. For most of us, our transformations will unfold in quotidian ways, though threats always loom - because isn't the world always drowning in disaster? And still we love. And mourn.

Reader, whatever season this may find you in, may Jane and Kenji's journeys delight and comfort you. May they remind us all, as Jane observes, that to love is to know our lives contain something worth the risk.

A Conversation With Alicia Upano (Provided by HarperCollins):

The novel is structured around the stages of a tsunami. Can you explain that further? How did this structure influence the pacing and emotional arc of the story? These tsunami stages inspired me because they speak to movement, conflict, and transformation. It was a gift: The book's major event mirrored what a story needs to contain, and thus these stages structure the book into four discrete parts:

We begin with initiation (a crack in the sea floor) that sparks our two lovers' relationship as well as their challenges. In Part 2, Split (when the displaced water moves in opposite directions), readers follow Kenji as he leaves Jane and returns to rebuild Hilo. In Part 3, Amplification (when the wave forms and the shoreline recedes), our lovers reunite. Their connection is amplified, and the shadow of seven years is revealed. Finally, in Part 4, Run-Up (when the monster makes landfall), Jane at last returns to her hometown.

Despite the structure, the actual tsunami hits in Part 1, so this is not a disaster novel, per se. Rather, the emotional arc of these two lovers crest in Part 3, when the external world is safe.

The first section is narrated by Jane and the second by Kenji, but by Part 3, their perspectives braid around each other - highlighting all the ways they are entangled in love and loss.

The lush, evocative setting of Hawai'i is a central character in the story. Beyond your life there, of course, did you do specific research into ecology, architecture, and history of the archipelago? Absolutely. I live on the island of O'ahu, but the island of Hawai'i has long occupied my imagination. Some of my favorite Hawai'i literature is set there, and I have fond memories of visits as a kid. My recent research trips included aimless wandering, capturing photos and video of the natural and built environment, and listening to the stories and history of each district of the island as I drove through (thanks to the podcast Ka Leo o ka Uluau).

I researched the historic tsunamis of 1946 and 1960 and read the testimony from survivors. It was helpful to visit the Pacific Tsunami Museum, which produced most of that material, while in Hilo. Like Jane, I visited architectural sites. I ATV'd through a ranch and took a ghost tour downtown. And of course, a writer needs to know some basics - what might Kenji grind on a huge, tasty breakfast? Where might our lovers enjoy and end-of-summer ice cream? For research. obviously.

The novel incorporates Hawaiian language and cultural references. How did you ensure those elements were represented authentically and respectfully? How do you describe your personal identity? I don't want to claim that I represent Hawaiian language and cultural references authentically, but I do care very much about approaching them respectfully. Hawai'i has a long history of misrepresentation, and among the most egregious, I think, is the erasure of Hawaiian language and cultural practices from the landscape (or solely thrown in for local color).

That said, I am not Native Hawaiian. My paternal family arrived from the Philippines in 1929 to work in the sugarcane plantations. My white mother arrived from San Francisco in the 1970s. And so I am of mixed heritage, like a quarter of the population of Hawai'i. My characters are also mixed and likewise aware of the islands' indigenous language and cultural practices that are embedded in our daily lives. I relied on trusted sources (from friends to books) to help me with understanding and accuracy.

In many novels that feature mixed protagonists, the plot revolves around an identity crisis in relation to the white majority, but Hawai'i doesn't have a white majority. We celebrate Christian and Buddhist traditions. The New Year with Lunar New Year flair. We populate our speech and tables with the foods and words of many countries. Many families are not new immigrants, so the old country feels very far away (yet do does the U.S. continent). While there remain many identity questions, the mixed experience here doesn't map cleanly onto common continental narratives.

Thus it was important for me that Jane and Kenji's coming-of-age journey wasn't propelled by how outsiders perceive them, but rather fully rooted in their singular humanity: their desires, heartbreak, grief, despair, and hope.

Jane feels suffocated by responsibility to her loved ones, whereas Kenji feels empowered by it. Their relationship is also deeply intertwined with themes of duty, guilt, and desire. Discuss the cultural norms surrounding family and responsibility in Hawai'i, as well as your approach to their individual character arcs. Jane and Kenji represent two points on a wide spectrum of familial duty. Kenji finds freedom and security in the family unit; it gives his life shape. Whereas Jane has a more stereotypical Westernized journey into adulthood; she is eager to forge her own path.

The fact that Kenji is a grown man living with his parents is true to life in Hawai'i -- it's cultural and a necessity. Because Hawai'i is a tourist destination, many don't realize that it can be very hard to live here. The cost of living alone is enough to send many a local family to the continent. Many who remain survive by pooling resources within the family, and this also creates generational help and connection.

Early on, I decided that Jane's journey was going to take her from selfish to selfless, and Kenji's journey from selfless to selfish. Those words are a shorthand, for me, about where we find meaning and what we choose. What is a love affair except choosing another person? What is duty but choosing what must be done?

Jane's influence gives Kenji permission to choose his own desires until the wave hits, and then he reverts to his basic nature. He desires Jane, but chooses duty to his family and community instead.

When Kenji leaves Jane for Hilo, he says, "[Y]ou don't have to work for love. You've always had it." I think this betrays the essence of his motivation, because his father was abusive and abandoned Kenji as a child, and then Kenji's uncle stepped in to become a father figure. Kenji's sense of loss, gratitude, and obligation was formative, while Jane grew up so emotionally secure that she took it for granted.

The wave wrecks them both with survivor's guilt and neither can reclaim desire in any true way until they reunite in Part 3.

The novel explores the idea of rebuilding  - both physically and emotionally - after a disaster. How do Jane and Kenji differ in their approach? What do you hope readers take away from this message of resilience? Because the tsunami occurs early in the book, this really is a story about what happens after loss. Rebecca Solnit's A Paradise Built in Hell - where I was introduced to the concept of to post-traumatic growth - directly impacted Part 2, when Kenji returns to Hilo. Post-tsunami, it's very clear what needs to be done. The physical rebuilding mirrors his own need to witness the loss and restore. In contrast, Jane's refusal is part of her own survival. Since there's no retrieving her parents or home, she must build a new life entirely. Kenji looks back, Jane forward.

When Jane and Kenji reunite in Oaklane, Jane discovers Kenji's work curating art form disaster debris. After he's helped physically rebuild the town, art becomes a model for the type of creative transformation he needs. The art is a manifestation of how Kenji - and others - try to process this massive act of destruction through creation.

This is what feels most universal to me and what I hope connects with readers. Whether the trigger is heartbreaking or joyous, we all must keep building and rebuilding our lives.

You have mentioned that the novel was written during a time of personal and global upheaval, as well as from your own experiences of loss and homecoming. How did those experiences shape your writing process and the story itself? Beginning in my late twenties, I lost a half dozen people in as many years. The last death revealed several deep desires: I wanted to return to Hawai'i, start a family, and write a book.

So I came home from a 16-year absence. After six years of settling into my new life, I began drafting this book. At the time, I was committed to writing the kind of novels I love, which often includes a big event and a love story. It took several drafts to see how this book reflected a prolonged period of loss and homecoming, as experienced through characters and events very different from my own.

Writing during the pandemic added another layer of resonance. I had one child and was pregnant with another in lockdown. It was a time period (for me) in which distance and disconnect braided with longing and love. The Maui wildfires deepened these feelings of risk and loss.

I'm neither a survivor of a natural disaster, nor did we suffer significantly in the pandemic. But the contradictions were not lost on me: How do I bring new life into the world, while others are dying? How can I create a temporary life in lockdown, while the future was yet unknown? So it's no surprise that these emotions also bled into the novel-in-progress: ambiguous loss, the longing for safety and connection, and a helplessness about how to proceed.

How did the story change throughout the editing process? What aspect of that process was most challenging for you? The initial draft featured Jane and Kenji as childhood friends who become lovers after the tsunami. Early feedback suggested that childhood friendship was an unlikely place for authentic desire to bloom, and that readers would wonder whether the lovers were connected only through grief. I agreed and now they are strangers from the same town, who find desire before the wave. Readers follow them as they discover intimacy, and soon they must navigate their newness under the worst imaginable circumstances. This created the tension for the relationship to propel the book.

My editor, Jessica Williams, had a keen sense of how to sequence scenes more effectively, and we also worked on underscoring the longing between the characters. The lovers aren't physically together for the majority of the novel, but in each scene, longing for the other is present.

What do you most enjoy outside of writing? Does napping count?

Since I have the privilege of year-round good weather and access, we have a weekly family beach date. It's medicine for the soul: swimming in the ocean, searching for seashells, gazing at the watery horizon and not a screen.

Cooking is also a welcome counterpoint to writing because it's a tactile space in which to experiment. I particularly enjoy receiving my CSA box stuffed with food that connects me to place - such as breadfruit and taro (canoe plants, brought over by the first Hawaiians), and those from my family's home countries - eggplant, daikon, etc.

Part of the reason I care so much about food is that food scarcity and insecurity are real problems here - 1 in 3 households go hungry. This everyday reality is featured dramatically in the book post-tsunami.

What books are on your nightstand?  Enjoying this year's Hawai'i reading including Shay Kauwe's fantasy, The Killing Spell: Hawaiian language reclamation and hot magical guys; Scott Kikkawa's Sporting Girl: the fourth in the noir series featuring a Japanese American detective in territorial Hawai'i; diasporic Kanawa Oiwi writer T Kira Madden's debut, Whidbey: thrilling yet every page must be savored; and Alana Kysar's Aloha Veggies cookbooks - second only to novels.

Everything to the Sea is described as part love story, part coming-of-age tale. How do you think about romantic love as a subject in fiction? I read widely, which means when it comes to novels about romantic love, I enjoy the wit and longing of rom-coms as much as the gut wrench of literary excavations.

My favorite literature class in graduate school was a comparative exploration of the literature of romantic love. We began with the The Tale of Genji and picked up some Pluto and Ovid as we moved through time. I fell in love with Sappho, got annoyed with Young Werther, and we rounded out the last century with the queer joy of Patience and Sarah and the enduring devotion in Love in the Time of Cholera. This survey emphasized, for me, ho the topic of romantic love in literature spans geography and time; its thrill and agony central to the human condition.

Likewise, Everything to the Sea centers a love story, yet it doesn't follow several of the romance genre's conventions. Love here is complicated by death, grief, and betrayal. There's no promise of a happy ending. And yet there are two entwined lives, transformed because of the other.

I have been calling this book a literary love story, inspired by the books I treasured in that long-ago class, and more contemporary titles I cherish.