Volcano: A Memoir of Hawai'i

by Garrett Hongo

Part memoir, part Japanese American family chronicle, part luminous work of natural history, Volcano tells what happened when Hongo returned to his birthplace in Hawai'i, as a young man, to reclaim its dreamlike landscape and his own elusive past. A magnificant evocation of heritage and place.

Genres: Memoir, Nonfiction, Autobiography, Travel, Japan, History, Asian American

352 pages, Paperback

First published May 10, 1995

Reviews

[Kara]

I stumbled across this book by accident, while I was browsing the nonfiction section about Hawaii in the library. I was immediately intrigued by this book's combination of poetic language, natural and familial history, and focus on place (and trying to find your place, both in the physical world and your family lineage). Hongo touches on many themes that resonate with me a lot personally: lack of knowledge about family history, feeling culturally unmoored from your surrounding communities, and not knowing where you are from, both physically and metaphorically speaking. Hongo's detailed descriptions of the world around him are lovely, and well-suited to Hawaii's lush landscape. However, sometimes he focuses on description at the expense of an overarching plot, and there's really no uniting narrative arc to this book beyond its broad investigation of Hongo's familial and personal history. This memoir is episodic and impressionistic in many ways — I suppose that's the poet in Hongo coming out — and while it makes for beautiful language, I understand why some reviewers struggled to get into the narrative, or rather lack thereof.

[Bill]

Garrett Hongo is a brilliant poet, musician, and teacher. Volcano reflects a short portion of his life: he and his young family live near the store run by his family years before, giving him the opportunity to record family life in Hawai'i, Japan, and on the mainland, revealing his history and the history of the volcanic island he calls home. Magma and ferns are characters in this story, as well as ancient relatives and stories, poems, reflections, memories. An enchanting book, one that moves the reader through time and space as they intersect and change.

[John Gossman]

My third or fourth read, this book is many things:

The language is beautiful, skirting the line between poetry and prose.

It is a well written memoir about a man seeking his roots in place, accessible to anyone, and builds on that a deeply moving account of the Japanese-Hawaiian-American experience.

And it is a lovely guide to the natural history of Volcanoes National Park. I have used it for decades to find hikes.

That it can be read as any of these things alone is surprising. That it is so successful at all of them is stunning and why I keep coming back to it.

[Leanne]

Born in the village of Volcano, amidst the misty lava fields and giant tree-ferns of the Big Island, Garrett Hongo left this land before he was old enough to really remember it. After spending a few years on Oahu, his family eventually settled in Los Angeles. And yet, Hongo continued to long for this place—the land of his birth that was just beyond the reaches of his memory.

Whenever he would ask about his past, family members would clam up and change the subject— and so his longing grew. As he himself grew, becoming, as he did a much loved, great American poet. Like many people, his identity is a work in progress. A story of home. And he brings this to Volcano, which is one of the best memoirs I have ever read. If I had to compare it to something, I would say it reminded me most of Sebold’s Rings of Saturn in the way the story meanders in its interrogation of inherited memory— his is an immigrant story of the Japanese who came to the islands to work on the sugar plantations and open local shops. Hongo, in the rich and musical language of a poet, is telling the story of the ghosts of his ancestors’ past. But he is also bringing to life the flowers, birds, and trees of America’s great tropical rain forest.

OLCANO CAME to be a kind of faith to me after a while. We came and went so many times, but it became the place I wanted to come back to, to which I believed I could return. I needed it like an identity, a way to mark myself. “I was born in Volcano…” began the morning chant in my head, like “I am a Jew” or “My parents came from Ennis, county Clare,” to others. Like a pilgrim bowing toward Mecca, I wanted a prayer to be the anchor of my own presence to myself and in a renewable relation to something much greater. So, Volcano—its rain forest, villagers, and calderas—came to mean a preserve of identity and consciousness to me, a thing almost like a faith. I’d meet strangers and say, “I am from Volcano,” and feel my soul bow toward a memory of Mauna Loa rising above a skirt of clouds, bruised at the base with rain.

That is what I want: to dwell in a place where I feel truly embedded.

[Sara]

This was a difficult book for me to get into at first, as Hongo used a ridiculous amount of metaphors comparing the volcanic land of Hawaii to women's bodies and genitalia in general, which struck this feminist as very cliched. But sticking with it yielded wonderful rewards, as this turned out to be a sensitive and heartfelt memoir about connecting with and forgiving former family members, growing up, and the specific struggles of being a Japanese-American in a white society. There's a great depth of compassion and feeling in this memoir that I will return to again I am sure.

[Mililani]

A good read from a poet's perspective. This is a good book for people living away from Hawaii who come from the Mountain View, Volcano, and Ka'u areas. A mix of geology, volcanology, botany, Hawaiian and Japanese culture, and family history. It illustrates the calling the rainforests have on people.

[Marleen]

A poet writes about returning to his birthplace in Volcano. He tries to make sense of his past and his culture and at the same time we learn about the misty, tropical flora, fauna and landscape of his home.

[Zeke]

Deep and powerful, Volcano is a poignant tale of one man’s life and homeland. At times, it felt we had waded too deep; I felt muddied down in so much description. Nevertheless, Hongo shares generations of stories in a beautiful and artful way.

[Ron Bolton]

Some stunning prose laced into a beautifully honest reflection of a difficult journey to discovery of a complicated family history.
Hongo's discovery experience of the mysterious, unique environment of Hawaii is fascinating.
There is much to learn, discuss and ponder in this book.

[Rodney Rauch]

A melancholy, mesmerizing, poetic read. Engrossing and encompassing. There's magic in here.

[Kate]

From Mary Karr’s list in Art of Memoir

[Johnny Woo]

Rated based on how the author treats people in real life. In short, the way Hongo treats people he isn't forced to be nice to is disgusting.

[Mariah]

This was not my style of writing. I see how the author is a dreamy poet. If you enjoy flowery writing with bits of story woven in you will enjoy it.

[Heather]

3.5

[Iany Kelly]

I liked; this book is amazing

[Mona Ammon]

Why I Picked This Book: It met my 2026 reading challenge to read a book set in every 50 state and all territories. This was set in Hawaii

Review: I debated my rating. It really felt in between a 2 1/2 and a 3. It was slow starting. There were moments when I got very engaged. Other times it felt a bit sloggy. His families' story in Hawaii and why they left Hawaii was interesting. His story of discovering his family history and his own identity was interesting. I did also like a limited amount of the descriptions of the geography. I just found that those descriptions were at times oddly placed, and overly repetitive. There are only so many very detailed descriptions of lava tubes and lava flows that I can handle in one book. I get that geography can shape culture, personality and history but ....
I had just finished the Rachel Maddow podcast Burn Order about the internment/incarceration of Japanese Americans in the US during WWII. To get the perspective of Hawaiians, particularly those of Japanese descent was a nice compliment to that story. I don't think generally, if as Americans we often thing about what we did to Japanese Americans during WWII, that we thought beyond those living in the continental United States.

[Dawn Garlich]

Volcano is a seemingly idyllic burg at the crest of Kilauea Crater on the outskirts of Hawai'i Volcanoes National Park. Nestled in the rainforest, it often reminds me of the play, Brigadoon, where the inhabitants are seemingly untouched by time and fade in and out of existence. There is great resistance in the community to leave everything as is, although visitors and many townspeople want to modernize. Hongo's book gives me insight of this place I now call home.

I would recommend this book to all new Volcano residents. It will endear you all the more to this area. It is hard for me to gauge if those unfamiliar with Volcano will appreciate all Hongo presents.

Two things I note are incorrect. One is that he assumes what is now Kilauea Lodge was originally owned by a wealthy family "with its circular drive". I believe Kilauea Lodge was originally a YMCA camp. The other item is that he calls the highly invasive faya tree "fire tree", which I believe is an easy mistake. The joke is a park film about invasives is that the faya tree is "on fire/faya".

Beyond Volcano, I enjoyed the multi-generational life experiences Hongo shared with the reader.

[Gary]

This is the perfect book to read if you're in or around the village of Volcano, Hawaii. And I am not being facetious. I took this book with me on a trip to the Islands, knowing I would be staying about 20 miles from Volcano. The author immerses you in the environment, and you can certainly appreciate his descriptions much more if you have some familiarity with the environment yourself, its ecology and dynamic geology.

That being said, what makes this book much more interesting than a simple guidebook or textbook is that it's actually the story of a family, of the author trying to reconnect with his ancestral roots as a Japanese-American born in Hawaii. As such, there is also much humanity here. And as a poet, Garrett Hongo is able to tie family, ecology, geology, and identity all together.

It's a journey and the last words are beautiful.

[Gerald Kinro]

Volcano, a community adjacent to the Kilauea caldera, the location of The United States’ only tropical rainforest, is the inspiration for Hongo’s remarkable work. Part memoir, part family chronicle he writes of this locale. The Hongo family has been a part of this community since the early 20th century. While family members may become detached, they have this area to bond them.
This is a successful transition for Hongo from poetry to prose. His use of language is rich as he describes they beauty of the volcano rainforest. The volcano “chuffs” and ferns “frondle”. His characters and their anecdotes are memorable, especially is grandfather—brothel operator and owner of the Hongo Store. Yes, this is a great read.

[G L]

Wonderful. Beautifully, beautifully written. I read it for a group that discusses memoir. I was the only one who really liked it, but I also sensed that I was the only one who really caught on to what he was doing: both seeking and vindicating his identity as a man displaced at a young age from the land and culture of his birth.

This book is really a series of extended and interconnected prose poems. There is narrative woven through it, but narrative is only a part of what he is doing. He is seeking for himself, and seeking to give us, the FEEL of the place.

[ryo narasaki]

memoir, power is in the concept: land - homeland.

otherwise, too heady.

[Trina]

Japanese-American memoir of a small town in Hawaii and its role as anchor in the author's life. Garrett Hongo's mostly writes poetry. This is a lovely book, personal and sad.

[Suzanne]

This book is awful! Spare yourself and never read it. I've never found a book so boring.

[Stready]

Hongo's one of my favorite contemporary poets. I've always been curious about this memoir and just picked it up in Feldman's Books on El Camino.

[Beth Kittelson]

Wonderful book - interesting insights on Hawaii and more surprisingly on being a teenager in a multiple racial LA high school.

[Patricia]

I balked a bit on passages where the writing seemed to be more about the language than what was behind it. But this book soars sometimes on its search for belonging, compassion, and grace.

[Rob Gall]

Occasionally has good passages. Highly repetitive and very draggy in many places. I finished it but must confess to leapfroging some pages near the end just to get there and have it finished.

[Julie]

Perfect travel read when you are visiting Volcano National Park on the Big Island... but not because it is a travel book. Hongo is a poet and this book talks about his journey to understand "chronic dispiritedness" and through his reconnection to his birthplace in the town of Volcano, Hawaii he develops a level of understanding and acceptance/peace regarding his ancestors' path. All this wrapped up in a wonderful description of the geology, history, flora, fauna of the region.