Melal: A Novel of the Pacific

by Robert Barclay

Overview

On Good Friday, 1981, Rujen Keju and his two sons come face to face with their complicated inheritance—one that includes years of atomic testing and the continued military presence of the U.S. in the Pacific. In this highly original work of history and adventure, novelist Robert Barclay weaves together characters and stories from mythological times with those of the present-day to give readers a rare and unsparing look at life in the contemporary Pacific.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780824825911
Publisher:	University of Hawaii Press, The
Publication date:	06/30/2002
Series:	Talanoa: Contemporary Pacific Literature , #6
Edition description:	New Edition
Pages:	312
Product dimensions:	5.50(w) x 8.60(h) x 0.76(d)

About the Author

Robert Barclay spent much of his life in Kwajalein. He now lives in Honolulu. This is his first book.

What People are Saying About This

Patricia Grace

It is wonderful to have a novel coming from the Pacific of people firmly rooted in the past and present of the great ocean, its atolls, islands, homes, and spiritual homelands. This is a wrenching story of people—voiceless, powerless—as they attempt to survive the horrors of nuclear testing, relocation, Western arrogance and domination. It is a good story with robust characters—some real and contemporary, others mythical and ancient—and an important book.

Ian MacMillan

What separates this novel from others, even highly respected ones, is its extraordinary descriptive mastery. . . . This precise and vivid evocation of experience is what writing has been about from the beginning. In all respects, this is a superb book.

Editorial Reviews

A first novel that left me dazzled ... All the characters—the Marshallese, the members of their spirit world, and even the Americans—are well developed and deeply, sensitively drawn

Manoa: A Pacific Journal of International Writing

An absorbing, original read

Honolulu Weekly

Barclay is a first-time novelist who simply got it right.... Melal is a powerful and at times heart-wrenching novel that should appeal to a wide range of readers interested in the region today.

The Contemporary Pacific

A first novel that left me dazzled ... All the characters--the Marshallese, the members of their spirit world, and even the Americans--are well developed and deeply, sensitively drawn

Manoa: A Pacific Journal of International Writing

Barnes & Noble Discover Great New Writers
In his wildly imaginative historical first novel, Robert Barclay has wrought a sobering morality tale that defies categorization. Melal is the story of the clashing of two cultures and the fight of a native island people to preserve their ancestral way of life despite the presence of the American military.

The Marshall Islands -- the lushly tropical setting for Melal -- spent nearly 40 years under U.S. administration. During this trusteeship, the United States used the islands to test the most powerful weapons on earth. On the now-polluted, densely populated island of Ebeye, we meet the Keju family: Rujen, a widower who, with the help of his extended clan, is raising his two sons. A native Marshallese, Rujen has spent his adult life working for the Americans to obtain the marginal level of acceptance he now enjoys. In true colonial fashion, Americans are suspicious of the islanders, who are forced to live in comparative squalor.

Rujen's older son, Jebro, rejects his father's attempts to assimilate, choosing instead to embrace his ancestry. As he teaches the lessons of their heritage to his younger brother, the extraordinarily complex and mysterious Marshallese folklore comes to life. Theirs is an exciting, frightening, and haunting journey -- one that slowly brings to light the cultural essence needed to create strength within a society, and that forces the reader to question our capability of achieving that same strength in our own. Melal is an important tale to which only this talented Pacific Islander could do justice. (Summer 2002 Selection)

bn.com

For those who, like most Americans, know little of the Marshall Islands or their history, there is much to learn and much of it disturbing. But Barclay evokes the beauty of the atolls and introduces cheerful, resilient characters amid the bleak waste-strewn landscape, so the book never descends into unrelenting darkness. Furthermore, he makes clear the wrongs that have been done to the Marshallese people without stridency or self-consciousness. He just lets you see. Barclay tells a human story about people who are tackling universal problems.

Honolulu Advertiser

This book is astonishing....

Pacific magazine