Honolulu (50 page)

In the end, of course, my portrayal of May is as fictional as Maugham’s: I’ve embellished her life and her personality, as is a novelist’s right and obligation to his story. But I take some satisfaction in hewing a bit closer to the essential truth and tragedy behind May’s trip to Samoa.

(There is a legend, by the way, that “Sadie” stayed on in Pago Pago and eventually opened her own brothel, calling it the Sadie Thompson Inn in a bid to reap some profit from Maugham’s fictionalization of her. It’s a nice story, but one not supported by the facts. According to a ship’s manifest in Passenger Lists of Vessels Arriving at Honolulu, May Thompson returned to Honolulu aboard the SS Sonoma on January 10, 1917, and the List of Vessels Arriving at San Francisco from Honolulu confirms that she left Hawai’i aboard the SS Maui on June 15, 1917. There is some circumstantial evidence-from census records-that she may have returned to her hometown in Nebraska, where she lived for at least the next twenty years; but since I couldn’t prove this to my own satisfaction, I left May’s final destination vague. Perhaps someday, like Wilmon Menard, I’ll follow up on this with more conclusive research and publish it as a nonfiction piece.)

Chang Apana, on the other hand, required little or no embellishment on my part. This guy really did arrest forty men at one time, fall out of a second-story window, get sideswiped by an axe, and solve innumerable crimes through a combination of shrewd deduction and two-fisted action in his long and storied career. Interested readers can learn more at the Web site of The Charlie Chan Family (including an informative article by Earl Derr Biggers on Apana) or at the Chang Apana exhibit in the Honolulu Police Department Museum. Two other valuable sources of information on the detective are “Will the Real Charlie Chan Please Stand Up?” in Jim Doherty’s book just the Facts: True Tales of Cops & Criminals, and the documentary “The Real Charlie Chan” on the Charlie Chan in Egypt
DVD
, available as part of the Charlie Chan Collection, Vol. 1, from Fox Video. I’m amazed that no enterprising historian has yet written a dual biography of Chang Apana and Charlie Chan.

Other books that contributed to my understanding and depiction of Hawai’i in its territorial days include Hawai’i’s Forgotten History by Rich Budnick, Growing Up Barefoot in Hawaii by Peggy Hickok Hodge, Hawai’i’s Glamour Days by Maili Yardley, I Knew Queen Liliuokalani by Bernice Pi- ilani Irwin, Hawaii in Love by Toni Polancy, Waikiki Beachboy by Grady Timmons, Memories of Duke by Sandra Kimberley Hall and Greg Ambrose, Pau Hana: Plantation Life and Labor in Hawaii by Ronald Takaki, “Assimilation in a Slum Area of Honolulu” by Kiyoshi Kaneshiro, The Garment Manufacturing Industry of Hawaii by Emma Fundaburke, Aloha Attire by Linda B. Arthur, The Aloha Shirt by Dale Hope and Gregory Tozian, The Art of the Aloha Shirt by DeSoto Brown and Linda Arthur, and Hawaiian Shirt Designs by Nancy N. Schiffer.

I am greatly indebted to my friend Sally-Jo Keala-o-Anuenue Bowman, who graciously agreed to read my manuscript and then gave me careful and considered comments on everything from character motivation to street names to horticulture and sewing. Her assistance was truly invaluable and deeply appreciated. (For anyone interested in what it really means to be Hawaiian, I commend to your attention Sally-Jo’s book The Heart of Being Hawaiian.) Hope Dellon has the sharpest eye and best story sense of any editor I’ve ever worked with; once again she has made me look the better for it. Amy Adelson also assisted me in thrashing out more than one troublesome plot point. My thanks go as well to Robert Eric Barde, author of Immigration at the Golden Gate: Passenger Ships, Exclusion, and Angel Island, who generously provided me with a translation of the chapters on “Asiatic steerage” from Michio Yamada’s book Japanese Emigration History As Seen Through Ships. Tamara Leiokanoe Moan provided expert research assistance on those occasions when I could not get to Honolulu myself. B. J. Short and Charley Myers of the Bishop Museum Library and Archives were an indispensable source of articles and photographs; William F. Wu shared his knowledge of Asian immigration and culture; Jan Morgan at Kohala Books recommended reference books. I am grateful, too, for the assistance of the staffs of the Hawai’i State Archives, the Center for Korean Studies at the University of Hawai’i at Manoa, and the Hawai’i State Library, as well as Susan Fukushima of the Japanese National Museum. For miscellaneous advice, encouragement, and research assists, mahalo to David Wells, Angela Claus, Rebecca Claus, Nora Steinbergs, and Priscilla Claus, and, of course, my agent Molly Friedrich. As ever, my wife, Paulette, was my “in-house editor.”

Finally, there is one other character in this story drawn from real life. May Thompson’s cat, “Little Bastard,” shares a few antisocial tendencies with our cat Casper, who eventually outgrew his bad habits (mostly) to become the sweetest cat anyone could want. Casper is a whole book unto himself, but since he died just as I was completing the first draft of Honolulu, for me he will forever be a part of this one. Goodbye, little pal.A hui hou aku.