His Majesty O'Keefe

by Lawrence Klingman, Gerald Green

The fictionalized account of the life of Captain David Dean O'Keefe. Set in the South Seas on the island Yap during the late 1800s.

Genres: Fiction

Paperback

First published May 1, 1950

Reviews

[Paul Cornelius · Rating 5 out of 5]

Neither pure fiction or pure history, His Majesty O'Keefe is a fictionalized account of the life of Captain David Dean O'Keefe. It is a story of adventure and romance that elevates O'Keefe to mythic levels. Just the sort of story that would catch the attention of movie makers, which it did in 1954, with Burt Lancaster fittingly in the title role. The real story of O'Keefe, however, is greatly different from the novel and film. Francis X. Hezel's rather comprehensive but concise history of the real O'Keefe can be found here: http://www.micsem.org/pubs/articles/h.... It not only provides a needed revision to Klingman and Green but also updates (as of 2008) the lives of O'Keefe's family and heirs as well as the ongoing litigation for his estate.

This is not to dismiss Klingman and Green's work. I had long anticipated reading it, and I wasn't disappointed. They create a thrilling story. And it is as much a document of its time as the tale of O'Keefe was for his time in the late 1800s.

Written in 1950, just after World War II, that conflict is still on the authors' minds. His Majesty O'Keefe especially ravages the Germans. And perhaps nowhere does the book depart from history more than its depiction of the Germans who Hezel, for example, describes as fair, tolerant, and fairly enlightened. Klingman and Green describe what amounts to square-headed, blond-haired storm troopers dishing out genocide and racial arrogance at every turn. The truth? It's hard to tell, actually. German treatment of native peoples in its colonies was often brutal and savage--but maybe not so different from that of other European colonial masters.

The other major thread in His Majesty O'Keefe is the almost Horatio Alger, Jr.-like depiction of O'Keefe's success. From starving Irish immigrant to laboring railroad worker in America and then to ship's captain, O'Keefe then ventures forth to become a wise and enlightened commercial tycoon. But he is one who serves up racial justice and economic fair play. Some of these characteristics, it seems, were indeed part of the make up of the real O'Keefe. Yet they played especially well in a post World War II America on the verge of economic and consumer expansion heretofore unimagined in world history. O'Keefe was not only a man for his own times but for "our times" as well.

That time, alas, has seemed finally to pass. O'Keefe enjoyed considerable fame during his own years as a trader throughout the South Seas and Asia and Hong Kong. And fifty years after his death, when Klingman and Green wrote His Majesty O'Keefe, his memory was still relatively strong. Not to mention that it was still a living memory to some people at the time. Some 68 years after the publication of the book--and over 117 years, now, since O'Keefe's death--all this is no longer the case. O'Keefe has become a footnote. If remembered at all, it is because of the 1954 Burt Lancaster movie, which, in fact, does capture the essence of O'Keefe as described by Klingman and Green. Yet looking back at all the turmoil, the struggle, and even the success, we see how fleeting it all was, all is.

[lindsay · Rating 4 out of 5]

Part biography, part historical fiction about "King" David O'Keefe, who became a very wealthy and influential trader in Micronesia in the second half of the 19th century. O'Keefe lived primarily on Yap, where he established a friendship with the indigenous Yapese people. He profited by arranging voyages for the Yapese to quarry the stoney money they valued from the island of Palau. In exchange, they aided O'Keefe in making copra from coconuts and collecting sea slugs (apparently a delicacy), which O'Keefe traded and sold throughout Micronesia. Along the way, O'Keefe married a woman from the island of Nauru, confronted the occasional pirate, tangled with unfriendly natives on other islands, and attempted to manage the meddling of various colonial powers, primarily Germany, Spain, and Great Britain, who attempted to attain control of Yap after seeing O'Keefe's success.

It is very evident from the diction in the first several chapters that the novel was written several decades ago (in the 1950s, I believe), but it does not detract from the quality of the story, and overall I believe the novel is well-written.

As a side note, I picked up the book while I was visiting Yap. The shopkeeper, a native Yapese woman, still spoke of O'Keefe with reverence although he was a white man and has been dead over 100 years.

[Carol · Rating 3 out of 5]

The book is about a man from the U.S.A. who lived on the island of Yap in the Western Caroline Islands for 30 years. My husband and I and our 3 children lived on that island for 4 years 1966-70. I read the 1959 version, not this one published in 1972. It was an interesting read. We read a lot during those 4 years, a box full of books that had been the New Yorker Magazine's book of the month club that a neighbor gave us as well as any book we could get our hands on. Yap was an island 2x8 miles long, 3 hours away from Guam. We had a lot of hours to entertain ourselves reading.

[Amy · Rating 5 out of 5]

Moves at a good pace, good story telling and education on the history and culture of various Pacific islands. I really enjoyed it!

[Barry H. Wiley · Rating 5 out of 5]

Published in 1950, It is the engrossing novelized biography of the remarkable David Dean O'Keefe, an Irish merchant captain who must flee 1870 Savannah to avoid being charged with murder. He escapes on a ship whose captain is a close friend. Months later in the Western Pacific the ship is destroyed in a storm. O'Keefe is the lone survivor who washes up on the beach of the island of Yap where he will spend the rest of his life. The natives of Yap are notorious for refusing to work. All they need is at hand, food, clothing, shelter, all from the island. But once O'Keefe understands the Yap obsession with fei, stone circles with large holes, which are looked on as the measurement of wealth on the island, he sees a method to put the Yaps to work harvesting copra for him. Yap is rich in coconut palms the source of copra, he has only to induce the natives the harvest the coconuts, cut them open and place the meat out to dry in the sun. Then pack the copra in 60 pound bags for shipping. Being able to ship 10-15 tons of copra every 2-3 months would soon make O'Keefe wealthy. He enlists the Yaps by providing them with better tools to chisel the fei wheels out of the stone cliffs on the island of Palau more rapidly and being able to cut ever larger stone wheels. On returning to Yap, O'Keefe ransoms the fei for copra which the Yaps then, to the amazement of the island traders, work diligently to provide. In the process, O'Keefe becomes the King of Yap. It is a system that works until the Germans take over Yap.
The story is very well told. The authors have heavily researched the
the period in the islands, interviewing sources who had lived on Yap or the other islands in the Western Pacific.
In 1952 the book was made into a popular movie of the same name starring Burt Lancaster as O'Keefe.