.jpg)
The Descendants
By Kaui Hart Hemmings.
Filmed as The
Descendants (2011), directed by Alexander Payne.
Published by Random
House Trade Paperbacks.
Published 2007.
ISBN-10: 0812982959
ISBN-13: 9780812982954
Description:
“A Pandora’s box–style
tragicomedy . . . [Kaui Hart Hemmings’s] comic sense is finely honed in this
refreshingly wry debut novel.” – The New York Times Book Review.
“With beautiful and
blunt prose, Hemmings explores the emotional terrain of grief, promising
something far more fulfilling than paradise at its end.” – San Francisco
Chronicle.
“A surprising and
affecting novel, a story about death and infidelity that manages to be a finer,
lighter story about life and love.” – Time Out New York.
Fortunes
have changed for the King family, descendants of Hawaiian royalty and one of
the state’s largest landowners. Matthew King’s daughters – Scottie, a feisty
ten-year-old, and Alex, a seventeen-year-old recovering drug addict – are out
of control, and their charismatic, thrill-seeking mother, Joanie, lies in a
coma after a boat-racing accident. She will soon be taken off life support. As
Matt gathers his wife’s friends and family to say their final goodbyes, a
difficult situation is made worse by the sudden discovery that there’s one
person who hasn’t been told: the man with whom Joanie had been having an
affair. Forced to examine what they owe not only to the living but to the dead,
Matt, Scottie, and Alex take to the road to find Joanie’s lover, on a memorable
journey that leads to unforeseen humor, growth, and profound revelations.
