Mango Rash:
Coming of Age in the Land of Frangipani and Fanta
Mango Rash is available from Flying Bear Books & Creperie in Newaygo, NCCA-Artsplace in Fremont, Artworks in Big Rapids, The Heritage Museum of Newaygo County, and many other independent bookstores. Signed copies may be ordered from the Buy Books section of this website.
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When I moved with my parents from Oklahoma to a South Pacific island in my teens, I thought my biggest challenges would be moldy shoes, underwear-attacking ants and a language that sounded like strings of vowels punctuated with hiccups. But a house fire, a hurricane and a few family flare-ups later, I realized that in spite of the island's palm-shaded shores and abundance of good-looking boys, my two-year stay would not be one big beach party.
With a mix of in-the-moment teenage sass and decades-later perspective, Mango Rash (Behler Publications, October 22, 2019) chronicles my stumbles through two alien landscapes at once: the remote U.S. territory of American Samoa and the tricky terrain of adolescence. As I begin to redefine myself and my place in the mid-1960s world, with frangipani-laced air and libidinous music the backdrop to my passage into womanhood, Samoa also experiences growing pains, trying to hold onto ancient customs while undergoing "modernization," American-style. At times, my struggles with identity, independence and integrity parallel Samoa's, and I take my cues from the island and its people.
Through crises as trivial as a mean girl's put-down and as staggering as the fire and hurricane, a schoolmate's near drowning in a surfing mishap, and the death of my best friend's father, Samoa teaches me about malosi (strength) and survival--lessons that prove invaluable when a startling diagnosis tears me away from the place I've come to love and thrusts me again into unknown territory. |
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