Heads by Harry

by Lois-Ann Yamanaka

You can always count on a crowd outside Heads by Harry, the Yagyuu family's taxidermy shop in Hilo, where the regulars gather every day to drink beer, eat smoked meat, and pontificate into the pau hana hours.  But above the shop, where the family lives, life isn't so predictable. Toni Yagyuu, the middle child, has enough on her hands dealing with her budding diva of a little sister.  But it is the men in her life that really have her running in circles: a flamboyant older brother who wants to be a hairdresser, a stubborn father who refuses to accept her into the family business, and the Santos brothers--two pig-hunting, ex-high school football players who don't know what to think of their headstrong, outspoken neighbor.

Genres: Fiction, Asian American, Literature

320 pages, Paperback

First published February 1, 1999

About the author

Lois-Ann Yamanaka is the author of Saturday Night at the Pahala Theatre, Wild Meat and the Bully Burgers, Blu's Hanging, Heads by Harry, Name Me Nobody, Father of the Four Passages, The Heart's Language, and Behold the Many. Her work has received numerous awards including the Hawai'i Award for Literature, the American Book Award, the Children's Choice for Literature, the Pushcart Prize for poetry, and Yamanaka was the recipient of a National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship.

Reviews

[Faith · Rating 5 out of 5]

Damn kolohe kids.
This hilarious, seductive, story of rainy Hilo town, sexy local braddahs, hunting with Daddy, and what it means to be one of the boiz will enchant anyone who has felt Hilo rain. This book had me gasping and cry laughing all the through.

[Vincent · Rating 5 out of 5]

I was still at the Writer's Workshop when I first heard Lois Ann Yamanaka read selections from her book, Saturday Night at the Pahala Theatre. A friend played it for me. She had a cassette of Yamanaka reading her poems.

That was over a decade ago.

I don't know why it has taken me so long to read one of her novels. For the time, she was one of the few Asian American poets/writers who presented a more gritty and more human voice. Her characters spoke freely of sex, loss, and drugs.

I thoroughly enjoyed Heads by Harry. The earthy somewhat sardonic(?) tone of the narrator moved the story along well. The dialogue is also particularly effective. Everything fit in place. Details about the past, the present, and the future were well utilized to help further develop the character of the narrator.

[Cheryl · Rating 2 out of 5]

I was reading this while in Hawaii & had fun with the use of pidgin & descriptions of local culture, which I could hear around me & embrace. The coming-of-ageness may have carried on too long & played out like a Hawaiian-style Cameron Crowe film.

[Dana · Rating 5 out of 5]

Another great one from Yamanaka. Back to Hawaii for more glimpses into family life that are touching, embarrassing and very real.

[Jason Nomura · Rating 5 out of 5]

Great portrait of life in Hilo and the characters resound of local flavor.

[Moana · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book brought me back home. It was a great taste of Hawaii in the 70s. I do think the pidgin may slow down readers who aren't from HI.

[amyleigh · Rating 3 out of 5]

The threads of girls coming of age, class and racial politics in 20th century Hawaii, and animals domesticated, consumed, and preserved in various forms, continues in Heads by Harry. This one follows Toni as she navigates the population of wild pigs, her father's taxidermy business, and the stakes in her future as a girl nearing womanhood. Not for the feeble hearted, this one is gutsy.

[Riri · Rating 4 out of 5]

“We all saved a place for you.”

No one makes you angrier than the people that love you the most. Thank you Sam for the book rec for the Philippines trip even though I was clearly manic before going.

[Katherine · Rating 5 out of 5]

It was really good and made me think.

[Brittany Laccetti · Rating 4 out of 5]

Out of the three Yamanaka books I have read, Heads By Harry is definitely the most "mature". By mature, I mean the characters are more matured. I don't know if this is just because her main characters in Heads By Harry are older, but I didn't find myself cringing at every thing.

Heads By Harry focuses around a family whose line of business is taxidermy. That fact alone makes Heads By Harry unique. Whenever there is a problem it seems as if the main character, Toni, rips apart the skin of an animal to make herself feel better, which I thought was interesting. In the family the reader is introduced to three teenagers, Sheldon the girly mahu, Bunny the slut sister, and Toni the sidetracked tomboy slacker. Unlike Blu's Hanging and Wild Meat and the Bully Burgers, Heads By Harry has a supportive family structure. The parents always seem to be around, and not high or drunk or dead, and make pretty decent money. But, Yamanaka proves that even the most stable family has problems.

I particularly like the predicament that Toni gets herself into. It make me chuckle a few times, making me feel like a horrible person.

I give Heads By Harry 4 stars. It was actually really good. I enjoyed it. If you want to read a less shocking novel by Yamanaka I would choose Heads By Harry over the other two I already reviewed for sure.

[Dusty · Rating 2 out of 5]

When I finished Yamanaka's previous book (Blu's Hanging) I concluded that she was a talented artist with questionable politics. In Heads By Harry, I find her exactly opposite -- admirable politics, questionable artistry. Like a lot of semi-autobiographical coming-of-age tales, this one takes itself way too seriously. The dead animals. The emphasis on piss and shit. The abuse of the word "sassy". All reasons this book is in almost every way inferior to Blu's Hanging. I didn't love that book either, but at least its characters had legitimate reasons to be unhappy -- dead mother, drugged-out father, nothing to eat but mayonnaise bread, etc. In contrast, the characters in Heads live lives of luxury. Two supportive parents and only their own insecurities (and some homophobia) to hold them back. Anyway, unless you're a Yamanaka nut (somebody has to be?) or, like me, compelled to read it for scholastic purposes, I'd wager your life is complete without Heads by Harry.

[Jean · Rating 2 out of 5]

It helps to be "local" when reading this book because Pidgen is the "language" used throughout and it makes the reading slow for those of us who were not raised locally in Hawaii.
I would have given this book one star because it seemed to be without plot or reason for most of the book, however by the last third of the book it bacame obvious that it was a chunk of the main character's life from when she was a child until she came into her own.
Be prepared for very course language which seems without purpose until you realize it is part of the local pidgen for that generation and culture.
It's worth reading for the insight into the culture. Try not to judge as you glimpse into a culture that is unfamiliar to you.

[Caroline · Rating 5 out of 5]

Heads by Harry was a bittersweet read, but I loved it. The taxidermy shop, the evocative descriptions of Hilo, the characters and their relationships—all those elements drew me in and wouldn't let go. I rooted for Toni to forge her own path through the misogynistic, often violent world she grew up in, to find love and acceptance, and prove her worth to her father and siblings. It was difficult to see her struggle and fall short of other people's expectations, but Yamanaka writes with both ironic distance (Toni doesn't make excuses for her choices and admits that she's often jealous, bitter, and desperate for attention) and warmth, revealing that Toni is resourceful and courageous. This is easily a favorite of mine and I look forward to coming back to it again and again.

[Tara · Rating 4 out of 5]

i read this book in high school and loved it, i have little recollection of the specific story other than its about a japanese american girl growing up in hawaii with her gay older brother and pretty younger sister. her dad owns a taxidermy shop and she wants to take over someday but her dad sees it as a mans job. i just remember really loving this book. i think i will have to read it again. oh and apparently its the 3rd book in a trilogy which i just found out when i looked up the book to put it on here, maybe ill find the other books.

[David · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book has the great story, compelling characters, and marvelous description that I expect from Yamanaka. I don't think this is Yamanaka's best example of child narrator. Certainly not like "Blu's Hanging" or "Wild Meat and the Bully Burgers." I had read this book kind of hoping for that, but this narrator ages more during the course of the book than the other books I mentioned. Even when she is young, she seems very adult without the reasons that the characters in the other books did. Still, a great book. Just not the best to look at for studying child narrators.

[Nicole C. · Rating 4 out of 5]

I remember reading Blu's Hanging a long time ago, and I still find that one better, but this was still very good. Yamanaka's prose is very evocative, and the characters are fully formed. Toni, the middle child, wants to work with her father, who owns a taxidermy shop, but he feels it is not woman's work. He wants her to finish college and make something of herself, but Toni finds herself drifting through life, trying to prove herself.

[Jessie · Rating 5 out of 5]

One of my new favorites. Toni is a middle child in a Japanese family. They live in Hawaii; her mother is a teacher and her father owns a taxidermy shop. It is so, SO much better than it sounds.

The majority of the dialogue is in Hawaiian pidgin. I love reading dialect when it is well-written and realistic, and Heads by Harry did not disappoint. At times it felt as if I could hear the characters talking out loud, it was so good. Also calling someone a "fucking tuna" is now in my repertoire.

[Chris · Rating 3 out of 5]

I was a huge fan of Yamanaka's previous two books. This one, while not my favorite, was also fairly good. The story was heartbreaking even though the characters were some of the most obnoxious ever. The whole "being trapped in the life that has been made for you" sort of plot allows for you to understand just why they are the way they are.

[Bernadette · Rating 3 out of 5]

It was hard to get into the pidgin dialect, but once I do the book was an interesting look into the culture and lives of Hawaii's mixed race populations - especially those of Japanese heritage. Did kept wishing through the entire book that the main character would stop being such a wimp and show some backbone!

[Crystal · Rating 3 out of 5]

An eye-opening look at Hawaii as a place where real people live and face the same kinds of everyday problems as the rest of us. Japanese-Americans in Hawaii have a unique culture, different from Japanese-Americans on the west coast.

[Scary · Rating 4 out of 5]

Another good book, but this one was a little more edgy. I felt for the main character.

[Emily · Rating 4 out of 5]

Really liking this so far... I love the pidgin English, racial tension, and local history of the Big Island.

[Wendie Joy · Rating 5 out of 5]

Favorite of all Yamanaka books, until Behold the Many came out.