Arthur Graham’s Reviews > The Curse of Lono > Status Update

Arthur Graham
Arthur Graham is 86% done
About six hours after I finished the last draft on driving the Saddle Road, I was sitting in the fighting chair on a boat called the Humdinger and locked into a desperate struggle with a huge fish -- and 17 minutes later I had it reeled up so close to the boat that I was able to reach out and shatter its brain with one crazed swooping blow from the Great Samoan war club.
May 30, 2026 12:31PM
The Curse of Lono

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Arthur’s Previous Updates

Arthur Graham
Arthur Graham is 96% done
“Look,” he was saying. “We're both in trouble.”
May 30, 2026 03:46PM
The Curse of Lono


Arthur Graham
Arthur Graham is 94% done
That was the problem, Ralph. We were blind. The story we wanted was right in front of our eyes from the very start -- although we can be excused, I think, for our failure to instantly understand a truth beyond reality.
May 30, 2026 12:55PM
The Curse of Lono


Arthur Graham
Arthur Graham is 92% done
YESTERDAY'S WEIRDNESS IS TOMORROW'S REASON WHY
May 30, 2026 12:49PM
The Curse of Lono


Arthur Graham
Arthur Graham is 90% done
It is not like fishing for trout. What we are talking about here is a beast the size of a donkey that is fighting for its life on its own turf. A ten-pound trout might put up an elegant fight, but a 300- pound marlin with a hook in its throat can rip your arm-bones right out of their sockets, then leap right into the boat and snap your spine like a toothpick.
May 30, 2026 12:41PM
The Curse of Lono


Arthur Graham
Arthur Graham is 88% done
I didn't pack that goddamn brutal Samoan war club in my seabag for the purpose of crushing ice. There is a fearful amount of leverage in that bugger, and I knew in my heart that by the end of the day I would find a reason to use it. . . On something: maybe a fish, or maybe the fighting chair. There is a lot of mahogany to work with on a thirty-six-foot Rybovich.
May 30, 2026 12:39PM
The Curse of Lono


Arthur Graham
Arthur Graham is 87% done
So much for that, eh? I think it's time to leave.
But before I go I want to tell you a fish story.
May 30, 2026 12:35PM
The Curse of Lono


Arthur Graham
Arthur Graham is 85% done
I type all night and prowl the roads by day, looking for Pele. She hitchhikes a lot, they say, usually in the form of an old woman. So I do a lot of driving and I pick up many hitchhikers, especially old women. . . but age is a hard thing to be sure of at 55 miles an hour; and the lazy shameful truth is that on any hot afternoon I can be found cruising Alii Drive in my T-top Mustang picking up women of all ages.
May 30, 2026 12:27PM
The Curse of Lono


Arthur Graham
Arthur Graham is 81% done
Forty thousand feet deep in some places, within sight of the Kona Coast. Eight miles straight down, off a cliff. It would take a long time for a body to sink eight miles down to the ocean floor. It is pitch-black down there, absolute darkness.
May 30, 2026 12:20PM
The Curse of Lono


Arthur Graham
Arthur Graham is 72% done
Every successful charter boat captain understands the difference between the Fishing Business and Show Business. Fishing is what happens out there on the deep blue water, and the other is getting strangers to pay for it.
May 30, 2026 11:31AM
The Curse of Lono


Arthur Graham
Arthur Graham is 70% done
King Kamehameha died on the eighth day of May, 1819, at the age of 61. His body was burned in a firepit and his bones were buried in a secret cave by his main kahunas, who never disclosed the site. King Kam has many monuments in Hawaii, but no tombstone. The same kahunas who buried his bones also ate his heart, for the power that was in it -- just as Kamehameha himself once fed on the heart of Captain Cook.
May 29, 2026 09:44AM
The Curse of Lono


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Arthur Graham (cont.) Nobody patronizes me anymore, Ralph. I can drink with the fishermen now. The big boys. We gather at Huggo's around sundown, to trade lies and drink slammers and sing wild songs about Scurvey. I am one of them now. On the night we caught the big fish I was cut off at Huggo's, and last night I was 86'd from the Kona Inn for kicking the owner in the nuts, for no good reason at all. The last thing he said -- after inviting us for dinner and picking up the tab for $276 -- was “Why did you do this to me?” Then his eyes rolled back in his head and he sank down with a terrible groan on that black-rock ledge in the entranceway, where he stayed for an hour and a half and said nothing at all to anybody.
That's what I heard today, when I called to find out if he'd received the roses I sent, by way of apology. . . Yeah, it was that bad. It was the first time in my life that I ever sent a dozen red roses to a man.
The boys at Huggo's went wild when they heard the story. They laughed like loons and slapped me all over my back, and even restored my bar privileges. They don't like Mardian -- the man I kicked in the nuts -- because one of the first things he did after buying the Kona Inn was to walk into Huggo's, where the fishermen drink, and say he was going to put the place out of business in six months, and anybody who didn't like it could suck on his black belt.
He is very serious about his karate, and he will probably kick my head off my body the next time I go in there to drink. . . But I like those fine margaritas at sunset, Ralph, and the Kona Inn is the only place in town that will cash my checks for cash.


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