Warwick's Reviews > Moloka'i

By-the-numbers ‘exotic’ historical fiction about the leper colony on the Hawaiian island of Moloka‘i at the end of the nineteenth century. The language is an ungainly mixture of anachronistic modernisms (‘she gave him the stink-eye’), boring clichés (‘harsh glare’, ‘warm glow’), and metaphorical flourishes that fall flat (‘Dorothy felt something wet fall on her leg, unexpected as a drop of rain on a sunny day’). Brennert is a veteran screenwriter for shows like L.A. Law, and much of the dialogue here performs the sort of brisk exposition that is acceptable in a well-directed TV film but which feels rather artless and clumsy in running prose. I'm sounding overly harsh here – the book isn't offensively bad, and people who generally enjoy this kind of novel will definitely get more enjoyment out of this one than I did. Brennert has done his research, I'll say that, but in my case I quickly realised that I'd rather be reading the books in the bibliography than the novel he turned them into; I bailed after a hundred pages, which is pretty unusual for me.