The City, Not Long After

On the Hawaiian island of Kaua'i, young Mamie Clarke and her sister, Claire, live in a precarious paradise, surrounded by coconut trees and sugarcane fields of their family's old plantation. As the moral ambiguities of adulthood overwhelm her, Mamie is haunted by the fading traditions and spirits of dying Polynesian culture and yet cannot free herself of the island's ancient spell. Moore provides a caustic account of New York, describing the sisters' visit to the world beyond the palm groves and Mamie's ultimate reconciliation with her own island truths. ISBN 0-385-26079-2: $17.95.