Middle Son

by Deborah Iida

Haunted by unhappy memories related to his Japanese-American family's forced transplant to war-stricken Hawaii, Spencer Fujii returns as an adult to the side of his ailing mother and rediscovers his identity. Reprint.

Genres: Fiction, Japan, Asian American, Family, Historical, Cultural, Historical Fiction

224 pages, Paperback

First published January 4, 1996

Reviews

[Celeste Noelani McLean · Rating 4 out of 5]

I both adored this book and was completely frustrated by this book. I made my sister read it just so we could dish about all of the things we found problematic. There was a lot of dishing to do, though we agreed that we were very happy to have read it. The fact that it was a quick read really helped.

I haven't read nearly enough books set in an intimately authentic Hawaii, especially where the characters speak pidgin. Lately, have been on a kind of a mission to add more Hawaii dialect to my literary diet, which is how this book made its way into my hands. I am desperately seeking a book that speaks to my native sensibilities; one written by a local author for a local audience. I was hoping that this book could be one of them. It both was, and wasn't. I am both okay, and totally not okay with that.

Spencer Fuji, the narrator, is Japanese instead of my Native Hawaiian, but that wasn't a barrier for me. The barrier came in the first few paragraphs when I realized that the author was going to explain certain things about Hawaii and her cultures, especially foods, that I felt the narrator shouldn't be explaining. Or, at least, I felt the explanations highlighted the overarching problems that I found in the rest of the story.

Here's an example, from paragraph three:

"Of the two, the box is more important. It holds pistachio nuts from my recent Las Vegas trip, kalua pig and cinnamon bread from Oahu fundraisers, and the pork-filled buns we call manapua that my mother likes."

Using the words "we call manapua" let me know that this book wasn't written for me and people like me; people from and of Hawaii that understand her cultural references. This book is written by someone attempting first to understand and then explain these references to someone who knows them even less. I am not the target audience. An outsider interested in, admiring, and perhaps even fetishizing Hawaii culture is the target audience. And that was a significant disappointment.

Another disappointment was the way the author handled dialogue. Pidgin English is such a vibrant, lilting dialect and while I could "hear" some of the lilt in the characters' conversations, much of it felt flat on the page. I understand that the conversations between son and his dying mother may not be very energetic, but even the dialogue set in the past, with younger characters, seemed...stale? Not quite. But definitely not satisfying. Perhaps this seems pedantic, but with how little dialects in general and Pidgin English in particular are represented in art and media, I think it is important to voice concerns and critiques. So there is mine.

With that being said, the writing is lush and often immersive, the characters genuinely interesting and believably human. Some of the scenes had me truly laughing out loud. Others found me quietly fighting back tears. The story is familiar and has a feeling of realness to it that honestly did help me get over my native dissatisfaction. When we met the Native Hawaiian serviceman who pretended to be Buddhist so that he could get off base one day a week, I laughed uproariously. That is something my dad completely would have done. I very much appreciated that inclusion.

In the end, I think this book is a gem.

Even with all of its imperfections, I would, and will, read it again. You should, too. And then let me know what you think, so we can talk story all about it.

[David · Rating 4 out of 5]

Being self diagnosed with a Middle Child Syndrome, I honestly thought that this book would be something like it and the next thing I knew, I was purchasing it along with other books that I bought in a thrift store. But as I read it and finally get through it, this book indeed was way different from what I had anticipated. It was rather a story about loss, friendship and family. And if there's one word that could perfectly fit for it, I'd go for heartwarming. This book was solemn as how the story pieces by pieces unfolds. That even there were parts that were simply melancholic, it still has moved in a way that it did manage to tug me at my heartstring. It is very seldom that a book touches me so even it is only 200 plus pages long, it still is one of the great stories that I have ever come across this year

[Marian · Rating 4 out of 5]

Sweet and sad.

This is a good book and I'm glad to have read it. It just pushes too many buttons for me to offer a coherent review.

[J.D. · Rating 5 out of 5]

Constructing Middleness: Hawaiian Identity in Deborah Iida’s Middle Son

Deborah Iida’s Middle Son (1996) is the life story of Spencer Fujii. The second of three sons born during the 1940s to a working-class family on the Hawaiian island of Maui, Spencer grows up torn between loyalty to his family’s traditions and the temptation to leave ethnic consciousness behind, to become westernized: a real American.

This sort of internal struggle is typical of the Bildungsroman; indeed, depicting the development of an authentic self may be viewed as the genre’s raison d’etre. But Spencer’s task of self-definition is more complex and more difficult than that faced by most characters. Spencer Fujii is Japanese-American, a member of an ethnic minority. His family is part of the socioeconomic underclass. And he is born in Hawaii, a postcolonial society in which the underclasses have self-destructively adopted the norms and values of the ruling class–“a self-doubt that makes them feel inferior to a system that is not only foreign to them but that is dangerous” (Barsamian 96).

Spencer eventually rejects both of the paths that life presents to him. He chooses to forge a third path, and in that choice he serves as the model for an ideal of uniquely Hawaiian identity: neither isolated by ethnicity nor absorbed into the American mainstream, but effectively in the middle–distinctly Hawaiian. In Spencer Fujii, Iida offers a solution to the riddle of postcolonial Hawaiian identity.

Most novels with postcolonial settings are concerned with characters who are members of the native ethnic group. Iida’s employment of an ethnically Japanese character, rather than a character of native Hawaiian descent, begs for explanation. That explanation requires us to explore a bit of history.

The archipelago now known as the Hawaiian Islands entered world history on January 18, 1778, when Captain James Cook of the British Royal Navy sailed HMS Resolution and HMS Discovery into Kauai’s Waimea Harbor (Kuykendall and Day 7). In addition to 172 sailors and officers, the ships carried stowaways whose impact upon Hawaiian natives would prove devastating: tuberculosis, typhus, typhoid fever, measles, smallpox, and–most cruelly of all–the venereal diseases syphilis, genital tuberculosis, and gonorrhea (Najita 171).

Hawaiians had no immunity to venereal illnesses, and their typically Polynesian sexual freedom ensured that the diseases spread widely and quickly. In this unprotected society, venereal disease left women unable to carry babies to term. Modern estimates place the Hawaiian population at about one million at the time of Cook’s landing in 1778. A century later, the government census of 1876 revealed a population of 54,000–a reduction of almost ninety-five percent (Najita 171). Pre-contact Hawaiian history was lost (the Hawaiians had no writing), the outlawed gods were forgotten, and the native arts fell into disuse. The remaining Hawaiians were too busy burying the dead even to keep their language alive.

Indeed, the Hawaiian language survived only due to the efforts of Christian missionaries, who developed an alphabet and spelling system for it, but it was not spoken, nor taught in schools. “Our language was banned in 1898,” says Hawaiian ethnologist Haunani-Kay Trask. “I grew up speaking and reading English, but I never had an opportunity to speak and read my own language. The Hawaiian language was unbanned–for tourist purposes–in 1978” (Barsamian 98). Activists in the contemporary Hawaiian sovereignty movement are attempting to revive the language, much as the Zionist movement has succeeded in establishing a modern, conversational version of biblical Hebrew in Israel. It is the continuing use of Pidgin, however, that has most directly represented contemporary Hawaiian resistance to mainland values and colonial usurpation of native folkways. In sociological terms, reports historian Gail Y. Okawa, Pidgin has replaced Hawaiian as the genuine language of the Hawaiian people (16).

As the number of natives dwindled, the need for field laborers was increasing. The United States was a ready market for sugar grown on Hawaiian plantations, but the American plantation owners couldn’t find enough healthy Hawaiian laborers to do the backbreaking work of cultivating and harvesting the sugar cane. The solution? The owners imported workers from countries around the Pacific Basin. Japanese, Chinese, Filipino, and Korean workers came to the islands in successive waves (Takaki 7).

As each new group arrived in Hawaii, its members were welcomed into working-class society (Fenton 159). Intermarriage, which was unthinkable for the haole (Caucasian) elite, was all but inevitable in the barracks and cabins of the cane workers. The language of the masters was English, but the workers spoke a Pidgin that incorporated elements from all of the islands’ ethnic contributors (Aspinwall 7). One’s status as Hawaiian thus arose from shared membership in a subjugated underclass, not a strict decoding of genetic background. To this day, the Hawaiian notion of Hawaiian-ness is based not upon a DNA-based racial model, but upon an inclusive genealogical model that, as literary theorist Susan Najita puts it, “valorizes multiple interpersonal relationships more reflective of the Hawaiian sense of group belonging” (167).

Unlike other postcolonial environments, therefore, in which characters struggle to reclaim their native culture, Hawaii requires its own to invent a culture: to synthesize native, Oriental, Polynesian, and Western influences into a workable Weltanschauung. It is appropriate, therefore, that Iida’s ideal Hawaiian is not a pure-blooded descendant of the islands’ original Polynesian residents. Such an exclusive view would limit Hawaiian identity to those who were born with the proper genes. Instead, Iida shows that Hawaiian-ness can be a matter of choice and character.

Spencer’s grandparents were immigrants who hoped to work in the cane fields only long enough to fulfill their three-year contracts. They dreamed of accumulating enough money for “a proud return to Japan” (22). Spencer’s parents were born on the islands:

Issei. It is almost as if their identifying characteristics–age, preference for Japanese language, adherence to traditional customs–have blended into one man, one woman, and been given a name. The second generation, first to be born on Hawaii soil, we call the Nisei. My parents were born amid the rows and pungent smells of sugar cane, and there my father also died . . . . I am of the Sansei generation. We are the dreams of our parents, dreams scarred with the thorns of cane leaves and pineapples. My own children are Yonsei . . . My daughter Teresa does not care for rice (22-23).

Middle Son is presented as a frame story. As the book opens, Spencer is arriving at the Maui airport after a short flight from his home on the Hawaiian island of Oahu: “My mother is dying,” he begins.

We live on different Hawaiian islands, and I fly to hers on the weekends, sometimes with my wife and children but more often alone. My mother and I have begun to talk about the past, now, more than we consider the future. Much of a parent-child relationship lives in the past. On the second day of an infant’s life, the parent reminisces about the first (1).

We learn about Spencer’s life as he and his mother relive their past. Spencer is taking a final opportunity to learn the things only his mother can tell him, and his mother is entrusting to him her last gifts: family secrets and her most prized possession, a Buddhist altar.

The family discussions gradually reveal the irony of the book’s title. Although Spencer is the second of three sons, he spends most of his life as an only child. The first son, Taizo, died at twelve years old, when Spencer was just ten. And William, the family baby, is given at the age of one month to Spencer’s aunt and uncle, who cannot have children, to raise as their own.

The transformation of Spencer from middle son to only son turns the book’s title into a puzzle. If Spencer is not the middle son by virtue of family structure, then in what sense is he “middle”? This question proves to be central to the definition of Spencer’s character and a key toward understanding the novel as a depiction of prototypical Hawaiian-ness. To be Hawaiian, Iida shows us, is to be middle.

The three Fujii sons are named Taizo, Spencer, and William. Only the first is given a Japanese name. Taizo represents the insular Japanese identity. “My mom says that when Taizo was born, she wanted him to have one English name,” Spencer says in adult conversation with William. “My dad said no. The oldest boy cannot forget tradition.”

The boys’ father, Hiroshi, is a stern and stoic patriarch whose silent disapproval and high expectations are depicted as stereotypically Japanese. As Taizo grows up, he self-consciously adopts his father’s stern silence and self-discipline. He takes a parent’s responsibility for his younger brothers–his brother and his cousin, as the family fiction would have it–and this sense of responsibility eventually leads to his death.

Taizo’s death is symbolic of his Japanese essence and its relationship to Hawaii. Spencer and William have gone swimming in a forbidden reservoir while Taizo, who cannot swim, stands lookout. A storm rises and the rain makes the reservoir’s steep bank too slippery for the young boys to negotiate. Taizo jumps into the water and boosts the boys to safety, then finds himself unable to get a grip on the land to pull himself out of the reservoir. It is as if the island itself rejects him, tossing him again and again into the water. Taizo drowns as ten-year-old Spencer runs for help.

Taizo’s symbolic separation from the land is reinforced at his funeral. The plantation custom calls for burial, but the boys’ mother insists on holding a Japanese-style Buddhist ceremony first. Taizo’s body is cremated and his ashes consigned to an urn in the Buddhist temple. At the Western-style funeral, an empty casket is buried. The separation between Japanese Taizo and the Hawaiian land is complete.

William represents the opposite choice. We learn that William is no longer close to either of his Hawaiian families. He has moved to Seattle and is no longer Hawaiian, but simply Japanese-American–emphasis on “American.” When he arrives for a reunion on Maui shortly before his birth-mother’s death, he no longer speaks the Pidgin that the rest of the family uses. He dresses and speaks as a tourist, and he claims to remember little of his childhood on the island. The mainland represents a sort of secular materialism to Hawaiians of all ethnic groups, a place where one can blend in and escape from the claustrophobic expectations of family and neighbors (Chi 65).

Spencer takes neither of these routes. He enlists in the U.S. Army after high school instead of taking the money his parents have painstakingly saved for a college education. The army episode–a chapter named “Perspective”–represents Spencer’s attempt to escape not only the disparate elements of his ethnic heritage, but his Hawaiian identity as well. Upon induction, Spencer and his fellow recruits, all wearing festive floral leis from their families and friends, take a short bus ride to the barracks. A drill sergeant calls them into formation as they step off the bus, and Spencer’s transformation begins: “I threw my leis from my neck to the dirt. Hundreds of others also threw their leis, tearing them in haste. We trampled the leis as we scrambled into formation” (139).

Later, a fellow Hawaiian serviceman named Kenneth attempts to enlist Spencer in preparations for a luau at the conclusion of boot camp. Spencer evades the task, challenging Kenneth regarding his status as an American:

His smile was calm. “Look my uniform, Spencer. Must mean something.”

I shook my head slowly. “Sometimes I wore my grandpa’s kimono, and that never mean nothing.”

“Nothing?” asked Kenneth. “Must mean something. You one Japanese.”

“Not exactly,” I said, slipping away before Kenneth could say anything more about the luau. Right then, when the whole American continent was coming into view, I didn’t want to focus on Hawaii (144).

Later, recruits from across the United States quiz Spencer about his background, one guessing that he is Mexican and another rejecting his claim of Japanese heritage because he was born on U.S. soil. When the southerners and midwesterners finally understand that Spencer is Hawaiian, they demand a hula dance; a threatened and humiliated Spencer complies (149).

The final scene in Spencer’s experiment in ethnic denial takes place in Saigon, where he and a soldier of mixed Portuguese and Filipino descent consider whether they would be recognized as American if they were killed in action and their government-issue clothing somehow destroyed:

“Maybe they can recognize you,” said Winston . . . “Someone would shout, ‘Get one American over here.’”

“You think so?” I asked, but when pressed that far, Winston fell silent. I opened my mouth to ask again, but he shook his head to stop me (154).

When his term is up, Spencer finds that returning to Hawaii is an easy decision to make. He finds his way to Honolulu and employment as a newspaper photographer. He meets and marries a woman whose blonde hair and round eyes are–in the happily mixed-blood tradition of the Hawaiian working classes–of no particular consequence. And he sets out to raise a brood of Hawaiian children.

It is not only in adopting a cultural background that Spencer embodies middleness. There is also the issue of language.

English is the official language of Hawaii; it is the language of courts and contracts and government debates. Some Hawaiians of Japanese descent speak Japanese by preference, living in Japanese communities and isolating themselves from Western Hawaiian life. Between these two poles is the lingua franca of the Hawaiian underclass, Pidgin: the same Pidgin that evolved on the plantations to allow Chinese and Japanese and Filipino co-workers to share jokes and stories as they rested after a long day’s work in the sugar fields. Except for his conversations with William, Spencer speaks Pidgin throughout the book. His fluency stands in contrast to his mother’s:

Her parents spoke Japanese, and her children spoke English. My mother has told me she feels fluent in neither. I understand her confusion. I, too, am a person of two languages: the oral and the written. Pidgin, the language of my childhood, inhabits my voice, and my lifelong love of reading lives in my writing. When I must speak textbook English, my mind visualizes the written words and forwards them to my mouth (7).

Taizo would have spoken Japanese as an adult. William has opted for standard English in his life in Seattle. Spencer’s Pidgin is the middle choice, and once again middleness marks him as Hawaiian, a true native of a land that lies–coincidentally, surely–in the middle of the Pacific Ocean.

Middleness in the Hawaiian sense is not a rejection of East and West, but a synthesis of them, a way of honoring both traditions.

In the Western tradition, ideals of ethical behavior come to us from Aristotle (387-322 BCE), who defined the middle path as virtuous in the Nicomachean Ethics. “[M]oral virtue is destroyed by deficiency and by excess,” he wrote, and “cultivated and preserved by the avoidance of too much and too little, that is by the pursuit of the mean” (129-130).

Middleness is likewise an ideal of the Eastern tradition as expressed in the Siddhartha Gautama’s first sermon: “Avoiding . . . extremes, a Tathagata [enlightened one] discovers a Middle Path, which opens the eyes, which bestows understanding, and which leads to peace of mind, to wisdom, to full enlightenment, to Nirvana. And what is that Middle Path? It is the Noble Eightfold Path” (39).

In exemplifying middleness, the character of Spencer Fujii is making a life that brings together the East and the West, the Japanese and the American, the worker class and the haole overseers. In Middle Son–and, the reader cannot help but be convinced, in real life–it is the middle son who is the true Hawaiian.

Works Cited

Aristotle. “Nicomachean Ethics.” ca. 350 BCE. Ed. & Trans. George Cronk. Readings in Philosophy: Eastern & Western Sources. 2nd ed. Ed. George Cronk, Tobyn De Marco, Peter Dlugos, and Paul Eckstein. Plymouth, MI: Hayden-McNeil, 2004. 125-138. Excerpt of Nicomachean Ethics, attrib. Aristotle.

Aspinwall, Dorothy Brown. “Languages in Hawaii.” PMLA 75 (1960): 7-13.

Barsamian, David. “Haunani-Kay Trask.” Louder Than Bombs: Interviews from the Progressive Magazine. Cambridge, MA: South End Press, 2004. 91-99.

Chi, Robert. “Toward a New Tourism: Albert Wendt and Becoming Attractions.” Cultural Critique 37 (1997): 61-105.

Fenton, Steve. Ethnicity: Racism, Class, and Culture. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 1999.

Firis, Amy. “Second-Born Given Away? First-Time Author Deborah Iida Explores This Japanese Tradition in her Book Middle Son.” Cincinnati Citybeat. 6 June 1996.

Gautama, Siddhartha [Buddha]. “The Middle Path and the Four Noble Truths.” ca. 450 BCE. Ed. George Cronk. Readings in Philosophy: Eastern & Western Sources. 2nd ed. Ed. George Cronk, Tobyn De Marco, Peter Dlugos, and Paul Eckstein. Plymouth, MI: Hayden-McNeil, 2004. 39-60. Excerpt of Samyutta Nikaya Sutta 56.11, attrib. Siddhartha Gautama.

Iida, Deborah. Middle Son. Chapel Hill, NC: Algonquin-Workman, 1996.

Kuykendall, Ralph S. and A. Grove Day. Hawaii: A History, From Polynesian Kingdom to American State. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall, 1961.

Najita, Susan Y. “History, Trauma, and the Discursive Construction of 'Race' in John Dominis Holt's Waimea Summer.” Cultural Critique 47 (2001): 167-214.

Newman, Katharine. “Hawaiian-American Literature Today: The Cultivation of Mangoes.” MELUS 6.2 (1979): 46-77.

Okawa, Gail Y. “Resistance and Reclamation: Hawaii ‘Pidgin English’ and Autoethnography in the Short Stories of Darrell H.Y. Lum.” Ethnicity and the American Short Story (Wellesley Studies in Critical Theory, Literary History, and Culture). Ed. Julie Brown. New York: Garland, 1997. 177-196.

Takaki, Ronald. Pau Hana: Plantation Life and Labor in Hawaii, 1835-1920. Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 1983.

[Linda Knight Crane · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is the second book I read about Japanese families together with listening to “Prairie Ostrich” on my commute to and from work. Both similar with a brother who died and Asian racism. Perspectives different as this book is from the POV of the middle son instead of an 8 year old girl in Prairie Ostrich. This book is in Maui where the 2nd generation of this Japanese family worked the sugar cane fields.

I felt this book captured the culture, dialect and family traditions of the Japanese. My mother is Japanese and 91 and the pidgin English of the book is so reminiscent of her when I was younger and with her family when we visited Japan. The pride and stubbornness, too, but also family love. A beautiful book.

The one highlight that capture mine and all Japanese moms was from her oldest son’s repast after his funeral at their home from a neighbor to Spencer, her middle son:

“Why you mother make rice? No need for her to cook. We got plenty rice.” I looked to my mother for the answer, and she shrugged, “ No can have too much rice”.

The relationship between Spencer and his mother from youth to old age plus the relationship of the father to his wife and sons is beautiful and painful.

[Jessica Kuzmier · Rating 4 out of 5]

For some, Hawaii is a vacation paradise where in one’s perfect fantasy, nothing can go wrong. But for those who live there, Hawaii is a real place where dreams can be shattered and tragedy can strike in a manner just as harsh as any place on the planet, a place where ghosts can haunt you even as the tropical sun burns brightly above and the ocean shimmers every blue of the spectrum.

‘Middle Son’ is a story about the latter Hawaii. Its backdrop for the most part Maui, the setting being the plantation culture that dominated the sugar industry of that island for well over a century. Much of the book’s strength comes from Deborah Iida’s sensory description of the island to tell the story of the protagonist, Spencer Fujii. Using spare but poetic language, Iida is able to vividly show how a personal tragedy shaped not only Spencer but the other members of his family, while simultaneously describing how change and time etch and transform cultures and generations of people. The sugar plantation that Spencer was raised on becomes a metaphor of change and evolution of culture, of birth and death and all the small births and deaths in between.

A small but powerful book, ‘Middle Son’ is a visual poem of a tale that is full of spirit, finding life in the face of death and beauty in the winter of decay. It fleshes out a place that by reputation is known for sun, sand and fun, making it a place where its soul comes to life and its spirit roars in the people and life that inhabit it.

[Paul · Rating 4 out of 5]

This novel reads somewhat more like a memoir. It is told completely from the viewpoint of Spencer, who at the start and end of the book is visiting his dying mother, who still lives in the small plantation house in a fictional town near Wailuku, Maui that he grew up in. The plantation has been closed, like most all now in Hawaii but she is allowed to remain there.
In between these visits to his mother, we are told Spencer's story from a young boy forward, growing up on the plantation and focusing on his relationships with his brothers. The book tells much more too, about plantation life and the experience of the Japanese Americans who were one of several communities on these plantations. The time line for Spencer, starting before and including Pearl Harbor, is similar to my father's, who was on a similar plantation but part of the mostly white 'managers' community.
Nothing much surprised me in this novel, but it was very interesting seeing the plantation life from a very different cultural viewpoint. There are a some things here that did surprise and add to my understanding, and though written a bit matter of fact this was a well told story.

[Janice Forman · Rating 3 out of 5]

The setting for this novel was extremely interesting and prompted me to further research the Japanese cane workers of the Hawaiian Islands. I originally found the use of Pidgin English questionable. Was the author attempting to belittle these people for lack of English skills? As I learned more about this piece of history I revisited some of my own biases. Why is my English supposedly better than another? I am not entirely certain the author intended for the reader to have this reflection, but it was good for me as I question our biases and our beliefs.

Spencer, the middle son of Japanese cane workers, reflects on his life as he confronts the reality of his dying mother. The Fujii family are at least third-generation Americans, but their customs and traditions are rooted in the Japanese culture. The responsibility of the eldest son to take care of the younger siblings is paramount — and in this case with tragic results. Spencer has spent his whole life with the associated guilt of his older brother’s death and the rift it created with his cousin/brother.

[Brono · Rating 5 out of 5]

Meanwhile holidaying in Hawaii a friend presented me with this novel which at first (I don't know why) I thought it was some real story.
Although the setting is mostly in Hawaii I felt somehow it was also "my" story. I'm not a middle son and till the day I left home I was the oldest one.
The narrative is so vivid that all the pain and sorrow and happiness can be truly felt as you go from one page to another not wanting it to end.
Like his mom said - in the end what truly matters are the people you love - and that got me thinking of all these years I have been away from those I love unconditionally.
If you're up for a nice, linguistically saying, funny reading you won't be disappointed with this one.

[Rachel · Rating 4 out of 5]

This work is heart piercing. The time frame is pre and during WWII. Spencer, the main character, comes alive in this work. Set in Hawaii (Maui) in a sugar cane company town built for the cane workers. These communities are separated by ethnicity. The houses are as basic as can be. The families in this area are of Japanese descent. It is a tight knit group where everyone knows each other. What is Truth? could be the title of this work. There is a central plot point that drives the novel which I found a bit mechanical. However the characters are so rich and the familial relationships are so on point that the plot is almost irrelevant. The love and longing in Spencer's family is almost palpable. Brava.

[Maria Stevenson · Rating 4 out of 5]

I think this is the first and only novel set in Hawaii, that I have read. Middle Son is very effective and readable and puts you in the milieu of 20th century sugarcane workers on Maui. The Pidgin English took a bit of getting used to, but not much. (I did find it odd that our narrator Spencer Fuji, continues to use the Pidgin English throughout his life, despite having broken free of the hard life of plantation work. Even with his Caucasian wife, he seems to speak the Pidgin English, but perhaps that's just a sign of how close and honest they are with one another.)
Although Middle Son is a sad story, it's an enjoyable read and somehow purifying.

[Tandelaya · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was a surprising little gem of a book. It’s character-driven rather than plot-driven, but oh, the characters. Spencer is the middle son, but there’s more to his family and his upbringing than just his position between brothers. I loved his mother, and the scene after the birth of William wrenched my heart. I learned a bit about Japanese family traditions in the mid-1900s in Hawaii, a bit about sugar cane, a bit about pidgin English, and a bit about what an older brother might do for a younger one. It’s a quick read, and well worth it.

[Aimee · Rating 2 out of 5]

The Middle Son was a bit too esoteric and obscure for me. For example, I have no doubt the sugar cane stalks were a metaphor, but deciphering the meaning or symbolism was completely above my head.

As indicated by the book title, the thrust of this novel focuses on the titular character’s relationship with his parents, specifically, his mother, but I would have preferred more analysis of his friendship with his brother and cousin.

[Ranette · Rating 4 out of 5]

I chose to read this book because my Grandmother was born on that island and her parents also took care of sugar cane. I wanted to see what the daily tasks were of the Japanese and if they would give me insight to my relatives.
this was a sad recount of the Japanese lives and the struggles their families had in Hawaii.

[Diego Palomino · Rating 5 out of 5]

Beautiful

Beautifully written, entertaining and informative. The characters were likeable and their personalities were well developed throughout the story. Sad, funny and enlightening.

[B K McIntire · Rating 5 out of 5]

Superb!y written novel

This is one of the best novels I've read. It brought me to tears throughout; time and place are realistically drawn. For a short book, it packs quite an emotional wallop.

[Lani Thompson · Rating 5 out of 5]

This has been on my tbr list for over a year. This book will stay with me forever. Being hapa haole myself I rolled right along with the pidgin. Sigh...Life and all families are complicated, doesn't matter where your from. I really enjoyed this book.

[Diane · Rating 3 out of 5]

The writing flows well in this book. This is the story of a middle child that is caught between caring for his mother and cultural differences. This book is very touching.

[Nance · Rating 2 out of 5]

DNF.

[Becca · Rating 4 out of 5]

Such a sad, haunting book. Beautifully written. The dialogue is lyrical in a stilted (to my mainland ears) yet, comforting way. It's a beautiful book in an achingly haunted manner.

[Carmen Redding · Rating 5 out of 5]

A tender and evocative novel that sheds light on the life of Spencer, the middle son of a Hawaiian family of Japanese ancestry. His journey

[Merilee · Rating 5 out of 5]

A view into a part of society of which I knew almost nothing. I have read about Japanese-Americans serving in WWII, but not so much about growing up on a sugarcane plantation on Hawaii. But beyond that, it was a tragedy of losing two brothers, in very different ways. The guilt Spencer must have felt would have been overwhelming to many. His family was used to tragedy, and I have rarely read of braver people in carrying on in the face of it.

Each character remained true to him/herself, especially Spencer's mother. The novel is framed around the adult Spencer visiting his mother at the end of her life. You learn his older brother died, but not how until about 2/3 into the novel. This device is successful, and helps build the drama into a compelling story. The atmosphere of growing up on the plantation is tangible. I highly recommend it.

[Cassie · Rating 4 out of 5]

I would like to share with you all a book that I have just discovered. I never really liked to read or got into a book before, until I read the book Middle Son by Iida Deborah. From the moment that I picked up the book till the last page of the book, my emotions were going crazy. I found that I had moments of tears rolling down my face but also moments of smile and laughter that brightened my day. Overall I would give this book four stars for three important but different reasons.
The first reason to choose this book is because of its realistic experiences. This novel involves realistic experiences that many of us can relate to. The problems that he faced were similar to many of our problems. For example, taking care of his mother when she was sick such as bring back food for her. And he had to overcome his problems such as dealing with losing many of his loved ones.
The second reason that you should choose this book is because of its plot that is easy to read and understand. Not only am I the only one that thinks that plot is very easy to understand. Many readers say that it was very easy for them to finish the book. Also the plot is original from other stories.
The last reason why you should pick this book is because of its universal theme that many of us could learn from. Middle Son, teaches you many life lesson because he is going through many hard times in his life; therefore, he knows how to handle and overcome many challenges that he had. For example when he was going through his brother's passing and he did not want to look at the picture on the wall, he overcame it and looked anyway and found out that looking at his brothers picture on the wall was not as bad after all. This teaches us that we can overcome many things of we just give it a chance.
Overall I liked this book very much. I could relate to many things that were occurring , the plot was easy to read and understand and lastly the universal theme was inspirational.

[Carolyn Gerk · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a wonderful, short little novel. I found it as I was scouring Amazon for novels about Maui (that didn't feature the phrase 'here today, gone to-maui' or 'love in' or 'romance in' or any further cheap beach smut). I tracked this one down and ordered it to my library.
A quick read, due in part to it's short length and the fact that it is heavy with dialogue, Middle Son is an unexpected gem. The novel allows the audience to gain insight into post war Hawaii and the cultures within. A story of tradition, honor, family, and loss; the loss of a son, a brother and the loss of innocence. Set against the beautifully depicted backdrop of Maui, Iida paints a lovely portrait of the island. She holds her ground in maintaining integrity as she dutifully portrays the cane fields, the camps, and uses pidgen-English for nearly all of the spoken dialogue. She creates a world that I found easy to sink into, and I found I was swept up quickly, not wanting to put the book down. A very skilled writer, Iida's novel has been described as 'stark' and 'restrained'. This is not inaccurate, and it fits with the melancholy tone that resides throughout the story. She uses a delicate touch with this novel, and it suits wonderfully.

[Janice · Rating 2 out of 5]

Spencer Fujii is a Japanese American. He is from Hawaii, and it is his duty to return to the island of his youth because his mother is sick. This island was no vacation wonderland for him and his family. There, work was hard. There was also a long ago heartache that we get dribs and drabs about. Spencer's older brother died young, and Spencer had to step into his shoes.

The reader learns about the responsibilities of older brothers to younger brothers through Spencer's dad's reaction to his younger brother.

We move along in time and think that we are never going to get to that fateful moment when Taizo dies, but we do at the very end.

The story is a good one. The dialect is annoying. It was hard to get through. (and I've read dialects, but this one wasn't difficult to decipher just annoying.)

[Anne · Rating 3 out of 5]

Set in Hawaii, Middle Son tells the story of Spencer, a sansei Japanese-American who has returned home from war to his dying mother. Ostensibly a middle son, Spencer lost his older brother while they were still children, and his younger brother was given up to relatives with no children of their own. The truth surrounding the death of the older brother has been kept a secret by Spencer and his younger brother their whole lives, and has haunted Spencer and his relationship with his parents. There is not a whole lot to the plit of this novel. But, what I truly enjoyed about it was the Hawaiian setting, the delicious foods described in detail, and the Pidgin English spoken by the characters - all of which reminded me of home.

[Beverly · Rating 5 out of 5]

The middle son tells this story about his life. How he feels, how he is treated as middle son. The exceptations he deals with from his parents. His older brother is not as "truthful" as his parents seem to think, as a result the older son sircomes to his end, and William the younger son becomes the apple of the parents eye.
Deborah has a way of describing emotional ties with a desire for the reader to keep going to find out what will happen next.
In the end you are brought to lessons about your own life, and how you could live moving forward. I found this book easy to ready, as Deborah certainly focuses on her character development, and draws her reader into the story very quickly.

[Martha Bratton · Rating 4 out of 5]

My husband brought this along to read in Maui, and I stole it from him. It's a wonderfullly atmospheric fictional memoir of growing up in the cane fields of Maui in the 1940s. This is one of those stories that makes you feel like you are there and it helped me get a feeling for the Japanese reserve and discipline within their families. The strain between decorum, respect, and adventuring out of those constraints provides tension, as does the central event of the story. The strong sense of place just happens by virtue of the artful writing--not by adjectives. It's a bit magical how this happens in the telling of a good story.

[Linda Legeza · Rating 5 out of 5]

Oh my, what a literary work! Every paragraph in this novel causes the reader to look up in amazement at the insight into human character, and all articulated so eloquently! This was the first time in decades I've been reading a book where I steal away every moment I have to dive back into this story, burning dinner, being late for appointments, and best of all, whiling away time during the COVID-19 pandemic. I wish there were more books to read by Deborah Iida ... such outstanding talent! This was such an enjoyable read.

[Diane · Rating 4 out of 5]

I thought this was wonderful Saturday book. A quick 200 pages that was so simple and sweet. Not so many details that it became confusing, but enough to get the point of the book. The point of this book is relative. Because it's about a Japanese family, tradition is different and there for someone caucasion may not agree. Brush up on your Pidgin English or be aware that the book comes from an angle in which Pidgin is spoken, which is typical of locals on the islands.