A Kind of Wrath

Sandra Drakes provocative A Kind of Wrath offers a new take on the mixed-race experience in the relationship between Paula Kajiyama and Will Cawdry set in contemporary multiracial multifaith multilingual Hawaii. Like Kiana Davenports Shark Dialogues Drakes novel challenges traditional assumptions about race and sexuality and demonstrates the way colonialism violence power and hope powerfully impact the experience of people of mixed race today. Michele Elam Martin Luther King Jr. Professor English Department and Director African & African American Studies Stanford University. Author of Race Work and Desire in American Literature and The Souls of Mixed Folk Hawaii is a splendid setting for a tale about renewal new beginnings for characters leaving behind their troubled past lives in a volcanic yet verdant landscape that is always renewing itself. The historian in me also appreciated the authors skill in showing how relationships in our post-modern Obama age are often affected by our efforts to transcend class race and gender roles and expectations; yet deeper understanding and lasting love are only possible when we recognize how much we are shaped by these roles and expectations (even when we reject or run away from them). Those of us who have lived on the boundaries of socially-constructed identities often wish we could find a place like Euphs [Will Cawdrys night club a community gathering place] but this novel reminds us that relationships always entail risks and uncertainties even in paradise. Clayborne Carson Professor and Director Martin Luther King Jr. Research and Education Institute Stanford University