When Strange Gods Call

by Pam Chun

This is a Shakespearean love story of old family rivalries that threaten a pair of ill-fated lovers who defy generations of animosity. It is set in the tropical paradise of Hawaii, the island temptress that lures the lovers back, and becomes part of this tale of love lost and rediscovered. It is a combination of "Romeo and Juliet" and Abie's Irish Rose with an Asian-Western twist. When Strange Gods Call takes place in the 1970s, a decade after Hawaii has reached statehood, a time of transition, when, among the older generation, the Confucian ethics of family, honor and scholarship are challenged by the American values of individuality and assertiveness. The central characters in this forbidden love story are Miki Ai'Lee, the great-granddaughter of the Chinese advisor to the Hawaiian monarchy, and Alex Demming, whose family have lived and grown wealthy over the generations as island ranchers. Their childhood romance ends as Miki flies off to become a professor of art in San Francisco, and Alex leaves for Cambodia where he stalks high stakes international art thieves. Years later, back in Hawaii, their paths cross at a time when both are faced with difficult decisions, strong parental expectations at odds with their own desires, as well as the clash of cultures. For Miki, this means Chinese traditions, in which there is enormous pressure for a young woman of thirty to follow in the footsteps of two thousand years of the history of her people. Poignant, lyrical, heart-rending and heart-warming, When Strange Gods Call is alive with the spirits of a land lush full of ghost stories and magic, a land powerful enough to reach across the seas and call its children home with the voice of its gods, the "Night Whispers."

283 pages, Paperback

Published January 1, 2004

About the author

Best-selling author Pam Chun's award-winning first novel, The Money Dragon, was named one of 2002's Best Books of Hawaii. Her second novel, When Strange Gods Call, won a 2005 Ka Palapala Po`okela Award for Excellence. She has been featured on NPR, at the Smithsonian and the National Archives, and in the documentary Hawaii's Chinatown, which premiered on Hawaii PBS. She is a veteran storyteller at the Asian Art Museum of San Francisco. Pam lives with her husband in the San Francisco Bay Area, where her tropical flowers bloom despite fog, drought, and frost. She has one son, a U.S. diplomat stationed overseas with his family.

Praise for THE PERFECT TEA THIEF
"The Chinese have a saying, "You don't know where you're going if you don't know where you've been." The Perfect Tea Thief takes the reader back to the source of the tensions today between China and the West in a fast-paced and captivating read based on the real life and letters of Robert Fortune."
—Barbara Bundy, PhD. Founding Executive Director Emerita, University of San Francisco Center for Asia Pacific Studies

Praise for WHEN STRANGE GODS CALL
2005 Kapalapala Po'okela Award Winner
"Chun vividly evokes the lush, sensual land and effectively dramatizes the conflict between old traditional and fast-paced modernity."
--Booklist Reviews

Priase for THE MONEY DRAGON
2003 Kapalapala Po'okela Award Honorable Mention
"Fast-paced and utterly addictive..."
--Kirkus Reviews

Reviews

[Ji In · Rating 2 out of 5]

The backdrop of 1970s O'ahu in this novel (more a romance novel than anything else) is what drew me to the book and what compelled me to finish it. The places and neighborhoods I know today as my home are shaded in with more depth, made richer, and take on the history and nostalgia of a shoe box full of old photographs, with Ms. Chun's descriptive writing.

The aspect of the book that I found was the weakest and the most distracting was the dialogue. Miki and Alex, the star-crossed lovers around whom the story revolves, speak with a stilted and artificial quality that makes me regard them as bad soap opera / museum guide hybrids. I have a deep appreciation for historical context and love a day at the museum, but the dialogue spoon-feeds these things to the reader in such a way that is almost like pop-up windows that materialize over the story, interrupting the flow. An example:

Alex reached over to an intricately carved and feathered spear and held it up to the light. "These ancient spears--Kelly's great-grandfather received those from King Kamehameha III. And that kahili," he gestured with a nod toward the royal standard, "one of the last from `Iolani Palace, was once covered with brilliant yellow o`o feathers. Too bad the black o`o only sported a single shock of yellow feathers. Four thousand birds died for that." He replaced the spear. "Ornithologists have returned to the Alakai Swamp near Mount Wai`ale`ale during mating season for the past ten years to count the endangered o`o. Four years ago they recorded the unanswered mating call of a single male in the rainforest of `ohi`a trees. Each year they returned to the same spot, never to hear him again."

In the same vein, the way in which the characters often pause to insert English-translated equivalents of Hawaiian, pidgin and Chinese words in the dialogue seem jarring. It is almost as if the characters somehow know some reader is hovering over their dialogue, eavesdropping on their conversations, and they do us the favor of shouting out translations of their local dialect, rather than Chun letting definitions and meanings unfold more subtly in the context.

Ultimately, for me, these points detracted from the otherwise quite fluid beauty of the book's backdrop, and made it difficult for me to consider the story believable in the way that I feel it could have been, with more natural dialogue among the characters.

[Kim · Rating 4 out of 5]

didnt realize that this was the second book i read by pam chun.i liked both books.she adds Hawaiian history as well as traditions and the culture of her Chinese family to her writing.i think for someone not familiar with Hawaii or the history of Hawaii, pam chun adds bits of historty within the story.
i liked the ending that miki and alex got the blessings of both their families.

[Ming · Rating 1 out of 5]

stilted pacing, awkward and mechanical dialogue, and a flat (and predictable storyline) pervade this book. the outcome is a rather immature or simplistic book. while the grammar and spelling are fine, the storytelling lacks depth or intrigue. every non-English word and historical element are explained as if to a inattentive or indifferent child. also, the author seems fixated on what people wear (e.g., khaki, shorts, dress slacks), local flowers, and the cars characters drive; these are repeated described and add nothing to the story.

I also thought her portrayal of cultural concepts, such as filial piety, were stiff and one-dimensional. The beautiful setting and the intriguing history were not enough to counter the numerous negatives in this book.

[Abby Rose · Rating 3 out of 5]

A fun read for someone who grew up on Oʻahu, but the writing wasnʻt that engaging. I kept asking myself if I wanted to finish..... The bones of the story are good, but The writing itself is uninspiring. The author was onstantly sticking in definitions in each sentence was annoying and broke up the rhythm of the writing. Thatʻs what glossaries ore for.

[Sadaf Hassan · Rating 2 out of 5]

Heartwarming and exotic, it is a stirring romance set in culturally rich Hawai'i that involves lovers from two feuding families with strong parental expectations at odds with their own desires combined, drawing how it will all be resolved. However I must say that I found the story somewhat run of the mill.

[Debdanz · Rating 2 out of 5]

This book had so much potential- interesting setting, interesting time periods, interesting premise, window into another culture- but the stilted dialogue and awkward heavy-handed transitions pulled the whole thing down for me. It could have been saved and polished by an awesome editor, but lacking one made it a painful read.