Surrounded by Spirits: Hauntings of Identity in Waimea Summer by John Dominis Holt

Alexander Casey

doi:10.32798/dlk.354

Published: 2020-07-31

Vol. 2 No. 1 (2020)

Surrounded by Spirits: Hauntings of Identity in Waimea Summer by John Dominis Holt

Alexander Casey

Dzieciństwo. Literatura i Kultura

Section: Studies

https://doi.org/10.32798/dlk.354

Abstract

In 1976, John Dominis Holt published what would be considered the first novel by a Kanaka Maoli [Native Hawaiian] author in English, Waimea Summer. This coming-of-age narrative set in 1930’s Hawai‘i follows fourteen-year-old Mark Hull, a half White, half Kanaka Maoli boy who experiences a series of hauntings on his uncle’s farm, all the while grappling with a burgeoning queer identity and conflicted cultural loyalties. In the post American-occupied Hawai‘i, the teachings of Christian missionaries and anti-sodomy laws have all but eradicated the aikāne [homosexual] relationships practiced by the ali‘i [royals] of Marks’ genealogy, and yet the boy’s queer desires refuse to die. In this paper, the novel is interpreted through Laura Westengard’s theory of the queer Gothic, in which concepts of the American nuclear heterosexual family are challenged by the burgeoning past, thus returning the narrative and agency to the queer Indigenous subject.

Keywords:

coming-of-age literature, Gothic fiction, Hawaiian literature, John Dominis Holt, Pacific literatures, Waimea Summer, queer theory

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Casey, A. (2020). Surrounded by Spirits: Hauntings of Identity in Waimea Summer by John Dominis Holt. Dzieciństwo. Literatura I Kultura, 2(1), 78–91. https://doi.org/10.32798/dlk.354

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Alexander Casey

ancasey@hawaii.edu
https://orcid.org/0000-0002-3748-1915

Affiliation:

University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa United States

Bio Statement (e.g., department and rank)

Alexander Casey – MA, prepares a doctoral dissertation at the Department of English of the University of Hawai‘i at Mānoa (United States) on queer children’s literature. Contact: ancasey@hawaii.edu.