Stereotyping Readers by their Favorite Hawai’i Author (or mainland author who has written about Hawai’i)

When I first read Lauren Leto’s deliciously evil list stereotyping readers by their favorite authors, I thought “someone should do this for Hawai’i.” Then, in a Twitter post, the lively and lovely Dawn from Honolulu’s Watermark Publishing nominated me to do just that, knowing nothing of my own thoughts. Duly encouraged, here I am a few months later with a list of my own.

Some will think this endeavor some measure of funny, boring, evil, unnecessary, silly and [fill in the blank]. But I had a lot of fun and laughed a lot while alone in my office brainstorming and compiling. And in the end, I managed to comprise a surprisingly long, stellar list of 50 Hawaii connected authors, and that’s not bad at all. (I apologize in advance if I’ve left anyone out–I merely listed everyone I could think of off the top of my head, and asked for recommendations on Twitter and LL and voila.)

Here they are in no particular order. Feel free to add to the list in the comments and forward the link. It’s all in good fun.

Ian MacMillan

People from the mainland who’ve lived here “for more than twenty years.” 


Chris McKinney

Disgruntled West O’ahu suburbanites

Allegra Goodman

Expatriate kama’aina living in NYC

Susanna Moore

Missionary descendents

Lois Ann Yamanaka

Pidgin connoisseurs

Mark Twain

People who lie about books they’ve read

Jack London

Men who work in cubicles

Robert Louis Stevenson

Men with mustaches and canes

Lee Cataluna

Folks you meet at Long’s (duh)

Eric Paul Shaffer

Guys born in the ‘70s who wish they came of age in the ‘60s

John Clark

Lifeguards, surfers and beachcombers

Mia King

Fierce 40-year-old women who are so over lunching

Jane Porter

Women who wish their husbands were better in bed

Wayne Moniz

People who think Maui No Ka Oi

Gavan Daws

Media haters

Paul Theroux

Guys who frequent Waikiki dive bars

Jon Van Dyke

Akaka Bill supporters

Maxine Hong Kingston

Women in Lua training

Kaui Hart Hemmings

Punahou graduates (too easy)

Patricia Wood

Residents who want gambling legalized

Haruki Murakami (re Blind Woman, Sleeping Willow)

English majors who love jazz

Stuart Coleman

People who have a timeshare in Kihei

Kiana Davenport

Women who lie about having a timeshare

Billy Bergin

Cowboys (too easy)

Barack Obama

People who believe he was born in Honolulu

James D. Houston (re Bird of Another Heaven)

Historical conspiracy theorists

Martha Beckwith

People who don’t take pork over the Pali

O.A. Bushnell

English teachers

Randy Roth

People whose kids can’t go to Kamehameha

Derek Bickerton

Profs who idolize Jane Goodall

Wayne Westlake

Slam poets (too easy)

Robert Barclay

Marshall Islanders

Susan Schultz

Girls who keep their journals locked and hidden

Nora Okja Keller

Foxy girls (too easy)

Arthur Rath
 
Stealth Hawaiians (and Menehune)


Richard Hamasaki

Boys who argue with English teachers about Hemingway

Gary Pak

People who won’t admit they watch Korean Soaps

Victoria Nalani Kneubuhl

Women without enough drama in their lives

Isabella Bird

Women who volunteer at historical societies

David Mitchell (re Cloud Atlas)

Journalists and writers

W.S. Merwin (re The Folding Cliffs)

Guys proving their sensitivity to their girlfriends

Lisa Lynn Kanae

Canoe paddlers

Alan Brennert (re Moloka’i, Honolulu)

City dwellers

Joan Didion

Magical thinkers

Haunani Kay Trask

Sovereigntists

Bret Easton Ellis (re The Informers)

People whose heyday was in the ‘80s

John Dominis Holt

Hapa-haole Hawaiian art and culture experts

John Saul

Teenagers

Mary Kawena Pukui

Translators

Kathleen Tyau

Kama’aina living on the other side of the Pacific