Extinction capital of the world Stories

DEBUT This affecting collection by Rigg, who describes herself as a Samoan-Haole settler born and raised on O'ahu, weaves together disconnected families, generations, and locales across 10 interconnected stories about contemporary Hawai'i. The collection's title comes from scientists' and residents' nickname for the Hawaiian islands, reflecting their immense biodiversity and the rapid rate at which it is vanishing. "Dawn Chorus" takes place on Midway, where a teenage Sam wishes she were back home in Hawai'i for her 17th birthday--until she meets Geri. In "I Made This Place for You," a young woman struggles with whether to return to the mainland for a job or remain with her aging grandparent. "After Ivan" has twin brothers Max and Mason traveling to Cuba for a kayaking event, during which Mason befriends the titular Soviet sporting hero. Throughout, Rigg considers the environment and climate change, white settlers' and missionaries' impacts on Native Hawaiians, and the ambivalence felt by many non-Native Hawaiians as to whether it is right to remain on the islands or if they should move to the mainland. VERDICT This powerful collection of slice-of-life short stories with complete arcs is told in evocative language and with care and empathy.--Jessica Epstein

Ten stories set mostly in contemporary Hawaii feature troubled family relationships and the hope of repair. Rigg's debut begins in "Target Island" with the detonation in 1948 of a 2,000-pound bomb on Kaho'olawe. The shock hits a family living across the channel in Maui: a mother thrown against a stove, a father knocked unconscious, and a baby, Harrison, somehow escaping injury from the shattered glass in his crib. For Harrison, the aftershock becomes his life's work as he strives to reclaim and clear Kaho'olawe of bombs, ultimately for his granddaughter, whom he hopes "will bring her own children to this place, will point at the bomb-free earth and say, 'Your great-grandpa did this.'" Throughout the collection, this hopefulness runs alongside the characters' sorrow over estranged or failed relationships and the despoiled ecosystems of Hawaii. Characters recur, sometimes as the parent or child of another character, sometimes peripherally, and often unnamed, and the resolution of one story turns out to be provisional in light of events in another. The turbulent mother-and-daughter relationship portrayed in "(Partheno)genesis," for example, is surprising given the father's perspective in an earlier tale, and the breakup that devastates a main character of the title story is triggered by the offstage reunion of two characters who had been separated at the conclusion of another story. Among the standouts are the last two entries. In "Poachers," a young woman worries about an unexpected pregnancy given that her own mother's love is "a feeling so fragile that she sometimes, in its absence, wondered if it existed"; while helping her boyfriend's mother poach flowers for sale, she finds another source of love for herself and the child she may have. In the title story, this child, now grown, and her father attempt to reconcile from a falling out with the help of unnamed spirits. These spirits proclaim that stories do not end, an insight that this collection, refracted through different perspectives over many generations, skillfully illuminates. This debut collection brilliantly and hopefully contests the finality of any story. Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.