<i>The Color of Air</i> is a historical fiction novel set in and around Hilo, Hawaii in 1935-6, during an eruption of the Mauna Loa volcano. The story mostly focuses on the Japanese American community in Hilo and on Puli, a nearby sugar plantation. By sheer luck, I stumbled across it while researching my own family’s journey from Japan to the sugar plantations of southern Hawaii so the story definitely had personal resonance, but also offered so much more. I must admit, I was particularly excited to see a book about Japanese Americans set both before World War II and in Hawaii. <i>The Color of Air</i> helps to flesh out the story of Japanese American history, reminding us that our presence and experience is not reducible to World War II.

Overall, <i>The Color of Air</i> is beautiful, subtle, and understated. The action unfolds slowly, but in a way that fits well with its themes, tone, and setting. More a story of a community than of any one individual, we are shown glimpses into the lives of a diverse group of people such as Koji, the steadfast sugarcane cutter; Daniel, the Mainland-educated doctor returning home; and Nori, the successful shopkeeper who nurtures her community, but the focus is on how they relate to each other and how they are intertwined with the community as a whole. Love and loss permeate the pages of this book, reminding the reader that connection must be cultivated, but that it can transcend time, distance, and death.

The setting – Hilo, the island, the volcano, and the community – are as important as the people the story is about. I found the setting beautifully rendered, not just in terms of geography or ecology, but also in terms of culture and people. Lifeways and day-to-day concerns are expertly rendered in a way that shows the complexity of place and time: the interplay of colonial, diaspora, and indigenous populations; the juxtaposition of wealth and poverty; the tension between the (spiritual) force of nature and the science that attempts to control it; the love and kindness and violence and oppression.

I recommend it to anyone looking to learn more about this part of history or just looking for a good story about the multifaceted nature of love.

Another beautiful novel by this author.This is set in the thirties in Hilo Hawaii a book of family a book of sugar plantations.A book that drew me right in took me away to the past to Hawaii and a great read.#netgalley#harpercollins

Beautifully written, thoroughly engaging story of close friends and family set in 1930s Hilo, with interspersed chapters giving voice to some characters experiences in earlier decades. The connections between the characters are slowly revealed. Not a book for those who love fast-paced action. Perfect for those who savor a well written book with a strong sense of place, community and rich connections.

The Color of Air
A Novel
by Gail Tsukiyama
HarperCollins Publishers
HarperVia
General Fiction (Adult) | Literary Fiction
Pub Date 07 Jul 2020 | Archive Date 01 Aug 2020

Good morning! If you are searching for suspenseful, can't wait to read the next page book this one is not for you. What Gail Tsukiyama writes is a quiet masterpiece. I will not recommend to our readers, but for the right person, this may be just the book for you.
Thanks to Net Galley and HarperCollins Publishers for my ARC!

If you are looking for an action-packed, plot-driven story, this is not the book for you. But Gail Tsukiyama's latest, like her earlier books such as The Samurai's Garden, is a quiet masterpiece. Through a chorus of different voices that narrate the book, Tsukiyama beautifully evokes the world of Hilo, Hawaii and the nearby sugar plantations in the 1930s. If you haven't already been to the Big Island, this book will surely make you want to go. And if you have been, it will take you right back to the smells and colors and riotous jungle oof Hilo and make you desperately want to be back there. The book is also a quiet ode too the power of community and the ties that bind us as human beings. Highly recommended.

The Color of Air by Gail Tsukiyama

This is a tale of a tight knit community in Hilo, Hawai’i, where everyone is called auntie or uncle. The author sends you on a journey with descriptions of the sights, sounds and smells of the island, along with the foods of every family in the story. You’ll wish you were there.

Daniel, the son of Mariko, has returned in 1935 after 10 years away in Chicago for medical school. He has questions about his father since his mother’s passing. Daniel eventually runs into everyone he knew back when and starts his quest for information.

Everyone loved his mother,Mariko, and while there are other characters, she is the most dominant force of the novel, though it would seem to be her son. Daniel even hears Mariko’s voice as he goes back and forth in thought from childhood to the present day. There is a lot of reminiscing from all the characters who have known each other since childhood. The eruption of Mauna Loa (Pele) was there to add excitement to the story, but I didn’t feel it ever achieved that.

There is a lot to learn about Hawai’i in The Color of Air, and though it’s a nice story, it lacks strength and drama. It seems that many things are repeated and there is not enough tension to fully engage the reader.

My thanks to #HarperCollins and #NetGalley for an ARC for my review.

I’m judging a 2020 fiction contest. It’d be generous to call what I’m doing upon my first cursory glance—reading. I also don’t take this task lightly. As a fellow writer and lover of words and books I took this position—in hopes of being a good literary citizen. My heart aches for all the writers who have a debut at this time. What I can share now is the thing that held my attention and got this book from the perspective pile into the read further pile.
In this case I think it’s because I’m always interested in underrepresented narratives and we don’t get enough commercial Hawaiian fiction. I also love novels that pay respect to ghosts and ancestors.

Thank you Net Galley for the free ARC. Daniel returns to his native Hilo to find out the truth about his mother,father and uncle Koji; all the while Mauna Loa is erupting and threatening with lava flows.

Oh How I loved this book! Many of the books I read about Hawaii are stereotypical but this was so well written! The family stories all rang true. First Time I have read this author, but am looking for more!

It's rare to find a book that focuses on the complicated history of Hawaii's sugar cane trade. This story was so rich and beautifully told, it made a perfect escapist read during these crazy times, I can't wait to share it.

I was excited to find a new Gail Tsukiyama book. I really enjoy her books. This was good and very evocative of the setting around Hilo, Hawaii. However, I didn’t think it was as good as some of her earlier works. Samuri’s Garden is my favorite. Felt story dragged in places and descriptions became repetitive but was interesting enough to read to its predicable ending.

Many things appealed to me as a reader in The Color of Air. I liked the characters and the way the story was told through their eyes. Setting some chapters in the mid-1930s and other chapters two decades earlier was an interesting way to add details to the story. One thing that I found rather distracting was how many of the characters said "yeah" when they were speaking. Maybe this was intended to make the dialogue more authentic, but I just found it distracting. I tried reading sections aloud to see if it sounded better than it read, but just found it odd.

THE COLOR OF AIR
BY GAIL TSUKIYAMA

I thought that this historical novel set in Hilo, which is a village in Hawaii which shifts back and forth in time from 1918 and 1935 was a pure effervescence and gentle read. I met Gail Tsuliyama many years ago and found her to be a kind and gentle soul. It was at an Author reading and book signing event at what was called the Newtonville Bookstore which is right outside of Boston. I bought and have read all of her earlier books and found this one to be just as good but different. So when I saw that she had a new book coming out I was excited to read it.

As a backdrop in this lush village sits the Mauna Loa volcano getting ready to erupt as Daniel who is Mariko's only son returns from Chicago where he studied and became a doctor. Mariko has already passed away from cancer and his father Franklin was absent from his life since he was a young boy. His honorary Uncle Koji was always like a second father to him and when Daniel returns they reunite. His younger sweetheart Maile returns from Honolulu and they slowly rekindle their long ago romance.

The descriptions of the smell of the molten lava spewing from the mouth of the volcano has the people in this village fearing that they might have to evacuate throughout the novel. The lush descriptions of the setting is so vivid I could smell the briny, salty ocean, taste the guava juice and mangoes that were a tradition for picking every year. The character's were beautifully rendered of a community where everyone knew each other and looked after one another. Gail Tsukiyama lovingly renders her characters to be kind and gentle just like she is.

Sugar cane plantations are described as a way for the men to make a modest living as much as fishing.
I really was transported back in time and felt like I was part of the storytelling. We get snippets of Mariko's voice as the novel alternates between time periods. Uncle Koji really loved Mariko and Daniel and he took good care of them in Franklin's absence. I highly recommend this to readers who love historical fiction. Five Stars.

Publication Date: July 7, 2020

Thank you to Net Galley, Gail Tsukiyama and Harper Collins Publishing for providing me with my ARC in exchange for a fair and honest review. All opinions are my own.

#TheColorOfAir #GailTsukiyama #HarperCollinsPublishing #NetGalley

Its been several years since I visited the island of Hawaii, but this novel brought it back to me. The author's descriptions and subtle weaving of the islands history makes me want to go back. I consider The Color of Air to be an excellent read. The characters were interesting and appealing and I enjoy coming away from an historical novel knowing more than when I started. Calm and introspective, the easy pace and loving story provided a welcome reading escape.

Story of multi-generations of several families in a Japanese-American community in Hilo Hawaii during the early 1900's to 1930's. Interesting to find out about the sugar cane plantation abuses and how the threat of volcanic eruptions affected their lives, but I was not really drawn in by the characters--maybe because the story skipped around so much and there were so many characters that we never really got to know them deeply enough.

Gail Tsukiyama is one of my favorite writers of historical fiction. This new novel, her first in several years, was worth the wait. It's set in Hawaii, both in the early part of the last century, and in the mid 1930's. Koji has always loved Mariko, but she married Franklin, who turned out to be a selfish parasite who left her and their young son Daniel. Koji was happy just being part of their lives, but nothing has been easy. As a cane cutter on the sugar plantations owned by wealthy haoles (foreigners, usually white), he and the other workers were underpaid and overworked. There are secrets and tragedies that eventually come to light as the Mauna Loa volcano threatens to envelop the village in molten lava. Highly recommended for fans of well-researched historical fiction. If you liked Alan Brennart's Molokai or enjoy the novels of Lisa See and Amy Tan, give this new novel a try. I'm grateful that I had the opportunity to review this ARC .

Gail Tsukiyama has always been a favorite author of mine so when I saw that she had written a new book I was so excited. The Color of Air was written beautifully and was exactly what I would have expected from her. She has a way with her descriptions that bring the settings in her books to life. Her character development was equally as brilliant I loved that The Color of Air transported me back to a time and place that felt familiar yet not at all. There was a duel time frame. Most of the book took place in a quiet Hawaiian town in the 1930’s. The memories or “ghost stories” that some of the characters in The Color of Air shared about people that had passed were from the early 1900’s. Many of the main characters knew each other growing up and continued to be friends into adulthood. The inhabitants of the town of Hilo were now second or third generation. Most of the original settlers had come from Japan but there were also Chinese, Filipino and Portuguese families. Sugar cane plantations and fishing were the main industries. Hilo was the kind of town where everyone knew one another and looked out for each other.

As the story began, the entire community of Hilo town was anticipating Daniel’s return. Daniel was Mariko’s only son. Mariko had died from cancer two years prior. Daniel had left Hilo when he was eighteen years old in order to get his education on the mainland. Now he was returning as a doctor. Everyone was proud of him. He was the first Hilo born boy to become a doctor and he had been one of the first Japanese to be admitted to his medical school. There would be a welcome home party for Daniel at the Okawa Fish Market. It was owned and run by Nori Okawa, one of Daniel’s mother’s (Mariko) oldest and dearest friends and her husband Uncle Samuel. Koji Sanada would also be there. Growing up, Koji was like a father to Daniel. Daniel’s biological father left him and his mother when Daniel was. very young. Uncle Koji, as Daniel called him, was always there for him and Mariko. Wilson and Mano, Nori and Samuel’s sons would meet Daniel at the dock and bring him to the welcome party. The three boys practically grew up together.

Hilo town was located on an island created by volcanoes. Mauna Loa or Pele had picked this time to become active. Great huffs of smoke could been seen emerging from her “ only to be chased by a spewing red-hot curtain of lava that blew from fissures hundreds of feet into the air” and she was causing the ground to shake. The people of Hilo town knew that the only thing they could do at this point was worry and wait to see what Mauna Loa would choose to do. As Daniel’s boat approached the dock, he also watched the rising smoke and “bright blood orange curtain of lava that shot upward toward the darkening sky”. Daniel had been born in 1907 when there had been another eruption from Mauna Loa but he was unprepared to witness it tonight as he was returning to Hilo. Daniel was returning to Hilo but harbored a secret that was eating away at him. The other person who had returned to Hilo at the same time as Daniel was Maile, his high school girlfriend. She, too, was harboring a secret. Koji and Nori had their own secrets as well. Over the course of the story, all the secrets would be revealed.

The Color of Air by Gail Tsukiyama was a heartfelt book about family, love, secrets, trust, grief, shame, romance and a sense of community. It was well written and gave each character in the story an air of familiarity, like you really knew them. I liked the feelings of anticipation I felt waiting for each secret to be revealed and how satisfied I felt when they were revealed and shared. The ending left me hoping that perhaps Gail Tsukiyama would write a sequel to The Color of Air. The Color of Air will be published in July of 2020. I highly recommend this book.

I received a complimentary copy of The Color of Air by Gail Tsukiyama from Harper Collins Publishers, Gail Tsukiyama and Netgalley. All opinions expressed in this review are my own.

This is a quietly evocative novel about Hawaii during the 1930's, with looks back to earlier days 20 years before. When the story opens, folks in Hilo are eagerly awaiting the arrival of Daniel, who has returned home after becoming a doctor and practicing in Chicago. At the same time, Mauna Loa becomes a very active volcano, threatening to destroy the community of Hilo. It is also learned that Maile, Daniel's high school sweetheart has returned to the island, to everyone's delight. As we become acquainted with the characters, it seems that they all have grief, secrets, and shame from their past. The approach of the volcano's lava seems to bring the secrets out of hiding, freeing the characters to appreciate their community. This isn't a page-turner type of read, but yields a very engaging acquaintanceship with another time and place.

I was fortunate enough to receive an advanced copy of this book from NetGalley.
I've read many, if not all, of Tsukiyama's Japan-related books and was excited to delve into this one, which is set in Hawaii. This is the kind of story that many will enjoy because it includes, romance, strong women characters, history, geology and depicts an interesting time in Hawaiian history and ethnic relations. It reads smoothly and I hope that a sequel is in the works.