Winter In Volcano
-
- $12.99
-
- $12.99
Publisher Description
'Her name was Felicia, a name Cullen liked. He wondered as he sipped his beer, what ancestral dance had produced such impish racoon eyes -eyes she was fond of hiding behind oversized sunglasses that only served to emphasise her nose, a perfect minature. And what, he wondered, might be the genealogy of that wickedly sullen mouth?' Cullen Kinnell, precariously employed by a small Catholic college in Honolulu, commits a fatal error. He falls for one of his students -Felicia Mattos. Cullen Kinnell is an intelligent man and old enough to know better than to play with fire. Gary Kissick's witty and richly expressive first novel explores how unsuitable love can cause an eruption of conflicting emotions, from which no one emerges unscathed.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Set in Honolulu, this carefully etched debut novel by poet Kissick (Outer Islands) evokes a world fragrant with ginger, jasmine and plumeria, lush with poinciana and banana plants. Luxuriating in his island paradise, Cullen Kinnell, 32-year-old English teacher at Holy Mount College, begins a secret affair with former student Felicia Mattos. The Brooklyn-born Cullen is seduced by Felicia's ravishing beauty, her dark Portuguese features and playful personality, but their ill-advised relationship is shadowed by Cullen's intense jealousy and Felicia's belief in superstitions and ghosts. A mysterious aura hovers over the couple, and they are even haunted by the villain of a local legend, a man who murdered his wife and her lover in a hotel room. Needing an escape from Cullen's bosses, Sister Lucia and Father Plecko, Felicia's protective parents, student jocks who blackmail Kinnell for flunking them, and the dead uncle who appears to Felicia in inexplicable nightmares, the two plan a trip to the Big Island to see a volcanic eruption. Functioning as an extended metaphor, the disastrous vacation mirrors the collapse of their affair. When Cullen learns Felicia's real reason for visiting the Big Island, he is forced to reevaluate his idyllic Hawaii romance. Kissick often strains too hard for poetic effect and the narrative is crowded with similes. When he concentrates on everyday detail, however, he brings to life a seldom-glimpsed middle-class, heterogeneous Hawaii.
