Outskirts Press, INC.

Lost in the enchantments of Hawai’i, how does a man - or woman - find the way back? And why?

In 1866, Samuel L. Clemens was ‘lost’ on the island of Maui. The journalist who would become Mark Twain suddenly ceased sending his dispatches back to California. His ‘Letters’ resumed six weeks later without explanation. What was he doing on Maui? And why did he want it kept secret? Emily Witt, English professor from Buffalo, NY, is handed the lost notebook Clemens kept during that escapade by the mysterious Hawaiian who also introduces her to the exotic and erotic realities of Hawai’i today. Before her summer research trip ends, the professor has to negotiate a future that satisfies her newly awakened self. In alternating narratives of Emily’s journey and Clemens’s missing weeks, this novel explores the lure of ‘going native’ and our ‘civilized’ resistance to it, glimpses of how Hawaiians embrace outsiders or don’t. How can Emily protect the Hawaiian family whose history is entwined with Clemens and still publish the find of her career? Is it exposure or exploitation? And how does love bind Witt and Twain to Hawai’i and its people?