Lois-Ann Yamanaka's Books

Name Me Nobody

By: Lois-Ann Yamanaka

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Named after Emmylou Harris because her mother used to "do it" to the Profile album, 14-year-old Emi-Lou Kaya feels like a nobody in her Hawaiian town: "I'm not smart enough to be a nerd. I'm not stink enough to be a turd. I fall somewhere right below the band geeks and right above the zeroes." Abandoned by her mother at age three, Emi-Lou hasn't a clue as to who her father might be, and on top of all this, she is overweight. (The popular Japanese girls at school call her Emi-lump, Emi-oink, or Emi-fat.) Her only salvation is the strength of the hard-as-nails but loving grandmother who raised her, and the feisty spirit of her best friend Yvonne. It is Yvonne who renames the dynamic duo Von and Louie, and who puts Emi-Lou on a strict weight-loss regimen. ("Von always says she's the tough outward and I'm the tough inward.") But Emi-Lou starts to worry about losing her touchstone when Von begins spending a little too much time with Babes, an older girl from the softball team. Rumors abound that her soul sister is a "butchie," and when Emi-Lou suspects it's true, she becomes desperate to get Von back to "normal" and back to her role as best friend.With dialogue that sparks with the rhythms of pidgin (Hawaiian Creole English), this compelling novel explores sexuality, racism, and the troubled waters of establishing one's own identity. Lois-Ann Yamanaka, author of the equally funny and insightful Wild Meat and the Bully Burgers, creates in Emi-Lou a character as complex and lovely as the Hawaiian landscape itself. (Ages 13 and older)--Brangien Davis

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Page Count

244

Publisher

Hyperion

Published Date

ISBN 10

0786814667

ISBN 13

9780786814664

Heads By Harry

By: Lois-Ann Yamanaka

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Heads By Harry

By: Lois-Ann Yamanaka

You can always count on a crowd outside Heads by Harry, the Yagyuu family's taxidermy shop in Hilo, where the regulars gather every day to drink beer, eat smoked meat, and pontificate into the pau hana hours. But above the shop, where the family lives, life isn't so predictable. Toni Yagyuu, the middle child, has enough on her hands dealing with her budding diva of a little sister. But it is the men in her life that really have her running in circles: a flamboyant older brother who wants to be a hairdresser, a stubborn father who refuses to accept her into the family business, and the Santos brothers--two pig-hunting, ex-high school football players who don't know what to think of their headstrong, outspoken neighbor.

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Page Count

342

Publisher

Harper Collins

Published Date

ISBN 10

0380733161

ISBN 13

9780380733163

Behold the Many

A Novel

By: Lois-Ann Yamanaka

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Behold the Many

A Novel

By: Lois-Ann Yamanaka

Behold the Many is the eerily beautiful story of three young sisters, Anah, Aki, and Leah. In 1913, they are sent away from their family for treatment for tuberculosis to an orphanage in Hawaii's Kalihi Valley. Of the three, two will die there, in spite of the nuns' best efforts to save them, and only Anah, the eldest, will grow to adulthood. But the ghosts of the dead children are afraid to leave the grounds of St. Joseph's, which is the only place they have known as home, and as Anah prepares to begin married life away from the orphanage, these ghost children grow angry. Desperate for the love of this girl who has communicated with them since her childhood, jealous of her ability to live in the physical world, and terrified of losing her, the ghosts are determined to thwart Anah's happiness. One of them places a curse on her that will reverberate through her future and that of her new family. As Anah struggles to appease the dead and to quiet her own guilt for living, it becomes apparent that only through one of her own daughters can redemption be attained. Poignant, lyrical, and utterly compelling, Behold the Many is a stunning new novel from the critically acclaimed author Lois-Ann Yamanaka.

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Page Count

356

Publisher

Macmillan + ORM

Published Date

ISBN 10

1429927755

ISBN 13

9781429927758

Blu's Hanging

By: Lois-Ann Yamanaka

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Blu's Hanging

By: Lois-Ann Yamanaka

Set on the Hawaiian island of Moloka'i, after the death of their mother and withdrawal of their grief-stricken father, "Blu's Hanging" tells "a poignant yet unsentimental tale" ("San Francisco Chronicle") about the three children left behind.

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Page Count

276

Publisher

Harper Collins

Published Date

ISBN 10

0380731398

ISBN 13

9780380731398

Father of the Four Passages

A Novel

By: Lois-Ann Yamanaka

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Father of the Four Passages

A Novel

By: Lois-Ann Yamanaka

Abold new novel about the redemptive power of love Hailed by Jamie James in The Atlantic Monthly as "one of the most original voices on the literary scene," Lois-Ann Yamanaka is back with a novel about family and forgiveness. Set in Hawaii and Las Vegas, Father of the Four Passages tells the story of Sonia Kurisu, a street-wise young mother, who struggles to raise her child, Sonny Boy, as she seeks to come to terms with the three children she aborted. In sequences alternating between the past and the present, we learn of Sonia's childhood-her abandonment by her father and her mother; her contentious relationship with her sister, Celeste; her string of bad lovers; her problems with drugs and alcohol-and of her wish to reconcile with her father and make something of her life by being a good parent to her son, who has begun to show signs of developmental problems. A haunting novel about fathers, forgiveness, spirituality, and solace, Father of the Four Passages is Yamanaka's most ambitious work to date.

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Page Count

288

Publisher

Farrar, Straus and Giroux

Published Date

ISBN 10

0374153876

ISBN 13

9780374153878

Snow Angel, Sand Angel

By: Lois-Ann Yamanaka

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Snow Angel, Sand Angel

By: Lois-Ann Yamanaka

A celebration of home, family, and finding beauty in your heritage, beautifully illustrated by the artist behind Anti-Racist Baby. Claire has been surrounded by the deep blue waves of Hapuna Beach and the magnificent mountains of Hawai'i all her life, but has never, ever seen snow. When her father drives her and her family to the top of the Mauna Kea, she can't help but to be disappointed...it's not the winter wonderland she's always dreamed of. And that's what she wants, more than anything. But as Claire edges ever closer to the new year, she wonders if maybe-- just maybe--she can delight in the special joys of winter in her own way--right there, on her Big Island of Hawaii. Includes backmatter that captures the environmental culture of Hawaii, and will teach children not only about the local flora and fauna, but also the value of being environmentally friendly.

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Publisher

Make Me a World

Published Date

ISBN 10

0593127390

ISBN 13

9780593127391

Father of the Four Passages

A Novel

By: Lois-Ann Yamanaka

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Father of the Four Passages

A Novel

By: Lois-Ann Yamanaka

From "one of the most original voices on the American literary scene" (The Atlantic Monthly) comes the powerful tale of Sonia Kurisu, a young woman who grew up troubled in working-class Hawaii and struggles to raise her young son alone. Alternating between the present and the past, Yamanaka depicts Sonia's difficult childhood, her addictions to drugs and alcohol, and her string of bad lovers. As she tries to gain control of her life, she is haunted by the ghosts of three children she never had. A work of raw energy and searing honesty, Father of the Four Passages is an extraordinary testament to the redemptive power of love.

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Page Count

240

Publisher

Picador

Published Date

ISBN 10

031242048X

ISBN 13

9780312420482

Conjunctions

40 X 40

By: Richard Powers,Lois-Ann Yamanaka,Can Xue,Lyn Hejinian,John Ashbery

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Conjunctions

40 X 40

By: Richard Powers,Lois-Ann Yamanaka,Can Xue,Lyn Hejinian,John Ashbery

In celebration of Conjunctions' 40th issue, the journal has gathered together fiction, poetry, plays and creative essays by some of its favorite contemporary writers. Featuring novels in progress from authors including Richard Powers, Howard Norman, Paul Auster and Lois-Ann Yamanaka, as well as "Heli," a surreal novella by China's foremost fiction writer, Can Xue, in which a boy falls in love with a girl who lives entrapped in a glass cabinet from which he must free her. Short fiction by writers such as Rikki Ducornet, William T. Vollmann, William H. Gass and Diane Williams appears, in addition to "Condition," a harrowing story by Christopher Sorrentino, based on historical events from the 1970s, charting the psychological disintegration of a female newscaster who, on her last day alive, methodically plots her suicide on live TV. 40x40 also features creative nonfiction by David Shields and Eliot Weinberger, poetry by Cole Swensen, Martine Bellen, John Ashbery, Lyn Hejinian and Robert Creeley, and a visual poem by Tan Lin. Rounding out this diverse celebration of contemporary work is a previously unpublished play by Joyce Carol Oates, specially commissioned for this anniversary issue, and a lively full-color portfolio of new work by Russian emigre artist Ilya Kabakov.

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Page Count

412

Publisher

Bard College

Published Date

ISBN 10

0941964566

ISBN 13

9780941964562

Book's by Lois-Ann Yamanaka

Name Me Nobody

Name Me Nobody

Heads By Harry

Heads By Harry

Behold the Many

Behold the Many

Blu's Hanging

Blu's Hanging

Father of the Four Passages

Father of the Four Passages

Snow Angel, Sand Angel

Snow Angel, Sand Angel

Father of the Four Passages

Father of the Four Passages

Conjunctions

Conjunctions

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