Song of the Exile

By: Kiana Davenport

Narrated by: Gabrielle de Cuir

In the last innocent days of pre-World War II Honolulu, two people meet almost by chance: Keo, a gifted jazz trumpeter native to the islands, and Sunny, a fiercely independent beauty of Hawaiian and Korean heritage. As their love grows, youth and ambition propel them into a world that is spiraling into madness. From New Orleans to Paris to Shanghai, through the horrors of Pearl Harbor, Nazi occupation in Europe, Japanese prison camps, and beyond to Hawaii's struggle toward statehood, this beautiful and haunting novel paints a mesmerizing portrait of a people and their history.

©1999 Kiana Davenport (P)1999 Phoenix Books, Inc.

Really Wonderful!

This is a powerful book of love, redemption and history. I learned so much about the Hawaii before Statehood and the various ethnicities that make up her rich culture. Amazing detail about WWII in Asia and the Japanese invasions and brutal treatment. Also, the author has a keen understanding of jazz and its place in American history. Two beautiful love stories and familial love all intertwined to turn a compelling story into a remarkable novel!! Really enjoyable and kudos to the reader for such fantastic character renditions!

I'm sorry but it was pretty awful.

Are you familiar with the "Bad Hemingway" writing contest? Select randomly anywhere from among the pages of pretentious prose in Song of Exile and you'll have a worthy contender. The story is tedious while the writing is artless, self-indulgent, and comically melodramatic. Meanwhile, the sonorous droning of the narrator is relieved only by the interposition of a whole lot of really bad dialect. One gathers she imagines that she is good at it. I love Hawai`i and Hawaiian culture. I love WWII history and I love jazz. I hated this book, which misused all of these. I mean no disrespect to anyone associated with this book but I urge anyone who is considering purchasing it to listen carefully to the preview. In my six years as an Audible listener this is the first time I failed to do so and I deeply regret it.