In Good Company

By Cedric Yamanaka

Book Overview

"See, I don't know, I was like a part of our whatchamacallit, group, but in a way, I wasn't. Like the guy at the ball game who doesn't cheer. I'm just the guy Rudy or Regan calls up. The more the merrier, you know? It really wouldn't make that much of a difference if I showed up or not. Really. I've never been real good with talking or conversation. I mean, all the guys joke around and laugh while I sit back and smile every now and then. It's like I'm watching a movie. Just watching everything going on around me. I'm not like the other guys. I can't come out with neat things to say that will make everybody laugh at the drop of a hat. I mean, I can go the whole night sometimes without saying a damn word." --from "The Sand Island Drive-In Anthem"

In Good Company is a celebration of life in Hawai'i, beyond Waikiki and Diamond Head. Its characters work sixteen-hour-shifts at airport drive-ins, play pool with cursed hitmen, wrestle their high school sweethearts in Chinatown bars. From Manoa to Waianae to the author's hometown of Kalihi, men and women seek love, dignity, and a place to belong. At the heart of In Good Company are the mysterious--and often wonderful--things that can happen to the human spirit when one life intersects with another.

Collected here for the first time are eight of Cedric Yamanaka's best short stories.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0824824989
• ISBN13: 9780824824983
• Release Date: November 2001
• Publisher: University of Hawaii Press
• Length: 198 Pages
• Weight: 0.55 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.5" x 5.7" x 7.6"

Customer Reviews

The Best from Hawaii

In Good Company is a brilliant collection of short stories about the struggles and hardships of everyday life in Hawaii. Cedric masterfully creates each character in his stories and shows how they come to terms with both their demons and fears. Sacred rocks, haunted houses, high-school crushes and fear of failure plague the characters in this collection of short stories. Cedric opens up with The Lemon Tree Billiards, a great story that was later made into a film, receiving top honors in the state of Hawaii. My personal favorite, What the Ironwoods Whispered, details the life of a boy, struggling to find his place in the world. He is torn between two worlds, that of his immediate life with his school drop-out friend and auto mechanic job, and that of the life he has yet to experience, if he is willing to take that risk. This story demonstrates that in the end, no matter how hectic and confusing life becomes, we will always find solitary with our true friends. Cedric closes his book with The Sand Island Drive-In Anthem, an excellent story which balances out the book and leave us craving more from this talented author. I have had the pleasure of meeting Mr. Yamanaka on a couple occasions and his colorful personality really shines through in his writing.

In Great Company

Yamanaka has created a facinating world, likely not known many, the world of Hawaii for those who live there, for those who work there. I have always been fond of writers who can take what you think you know about a place and make you realize you didn't know very much at all. His stories are populated with dreamers and seekers (shut-in hitmen, wrestlers on the look-out for something more than headlocks, cursed poolplayers, men with questionable reputations who aren't quite who they seem)in a lush and complex paradise. They find trouble in this paradise and sometimes wonderful solutions in this paradise. The stories are often affecting tributes to the power of friendships as well as the salvation of family. They are told with great humor, a great eye to detail and with an empathy seldom seen in modern American fiction. This isn't the tedium of Michener or a postcard from the Travel Channel. This is the stuff real life wrought by a fine writer.