Sharks in the Time of Saviors
“Mixes hardscrabble Hawaiin reality with flights of wonder and the supernatural.”
Vanity Fair
A New York Times Notable Book of the Year
A London Guardian Best Book of the Year
An Oprah Magazine Pick of the Year's Best Books
A Good Housekeeping Best Book of 2020
One of Kirkus Reviews’ Best Books of 2020
A BBC Culture Magazine Pick of 2020's Best Books
A Barack Obama Reading List Pick of the Year
A 2020 Barnes & Noble Best Book of the Year
Longlisted for the PEN/Jean Stein Book Award
Longlisted for the PEN/Open Book Award
Winner of the Minnesota Book Award for Best Novel
Shortlisted for the William Saroyan International Prize for Writing
In 1995, off the coast of Kailua-Kona, Hawai’i, seven-year-old Nainoa Flores falls overboard into the Pacific Ocean. When a shiver of sharks appears in the water, everyone fears the worst. But Noa is gingerly delivered to his mother in the jaws of a shark, making his story the stuff of legend.
Kawai Strong Washburn’s debut, Sharks in the Time of Saviors, follows Noa’s family as they struggle amid the collapsing sugarcane industry. They hail his rescue as a sign of the favor of ancient Hawaiian gods—a belief reinforced by Noa’s puzzling new abilities. But as time passes, this supposed divine favor drives the family apart: Noa, now working as a paramedic in gritty Oregon neighborhoods, attempts to fathom his expanding abilities; farther north, in Washington, his older brother, Dean, hurtles into the world of elite college athletics, becoming obsessed with wealth and fame; and in California, his risk-addicted younger sister, Kaui, navigates unforgiving academic and wilderness landscapes to forge her independence from the family’s legacy.
When supernatural events revisit the Flores household in Hawai’i—this time with tragic consequences—everyone must reckon with the bonds of family, the meaning of heritage, and the cost of survival.
Praise