Sharks in the Time of Saviors, by Kawai Strong Washburn

The novel presents a clever puzzle, but a few pieces don’t quite fit.

Sharks in the Time of Saviors is a remarkable debut novel. The author deals with difficult subject matter, what Kirkus referred to as mysticism and miracles, in an engaging fashion that keeps the characters grounded. Their humanness is not overpowered by the miracle of Noa’s rescue by sharks, nor by what is perhaps a mystical character trait in the family that gives an extreme sensitivity to desperation felt by others, sometimes desperation so strong that its owner lets life slip away. These situations are used to set up and propel family dynamics associated with failures and successes experienced throughout the story by Noa and his siblings. But in the end the sum of their interactions with each other is the one problem with the novel. The siblings don’t quite get to closure. Something resembling a miracle appears to occur at the end, whether that be the revelations of Malia or the successes of Kaui or the return of Dean, but it doesn’t quite tie up the loose ends. For the family members their stories are not a journey to their roots, as one reviewer has claimed, but to individual self-understanding. And the last pieces of the puzzle for them, those that would make their understanding of the events satisfying, don’t quite fit into the picture.

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