Hula (Magill’s Literary Annual 1991-2005)
At a glance:
- Author: Lisa Shea
- First Published: 1994
- Type of Work: Novel
- Time of Work: The summer of 1964 to the summer of 1965
- Setting: An undesignated Virginia suburb
- Principal Characters: The narrator, Her unnamed sister, Their father, Their mother
- Genres: Long fiction
- Subjects: Girls, Family or family life, Sex or sexuality, Abused persons, Brothers and sisters, Violence, Death or dying, Imagination, Catholics or Catholic Church, Suburban life
- Locales: Virginia
Among the many strengths of Hula, winner of the Whiting Writers’ Award in 1993, is the way it depicts how children in harrowing circumstances encode the sinister atmosphere in which they live within the ordinary surfaces of their imaginative play. Lisa Shea tells this story through the first-person narrative of the younger of a pair of sisters in a severely troubled family. Relying primarily upon their sibling bond for emotional reinforcement, the two must negotiate the constant threat to their well-being posed by a father whose World War II head wound has left him deranged,...
[The entire page is 2094 words long]
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