Cookie Lily

by Mary Troy

In the title story, Lily struggles to escape the depressed fatalism of her mother, to come to terms with the fact that she's never had a relationship with her father, and to exorcise the demons of her loveless relationship with the father of her baby. Though she is stymied at every turn, Lily finds a sense of self-worth and the courage to take on the challenges of single motherhood.
In "Beach Dogs," Kiki sets out to scam Mummers, her mother, who is a mercenary manipulator, by using a homeless person as a tool. At the end of this tale of moral corruption, the daughter is surprised to discover a speck of empathy for her feckless mother as well as for her white-collar criminal father.
In "Luau," Syd Yasuda, a young college woman of Japanese ancestry, is betrayed by Fuzzy, her unmotivated Hawaiian boyfriend, in the aftermath of setting up a wedding Iuau on a North Shore beach.

176 pages, Hardcover

First published October 1, 2004

Reviews

[Margot · Rating 3 out of 5]

Tales of woe, disappointment and disillusionment from several female characters. Many of the stories focus on the experience of haole women, sometimes kamaaina who grew up here, but usually transplants. Several of the characters are very ethnicity-conscious, and obsessed with "passing" for Polynesian. A good dose of dissatisfaction all around.