Despite its slim size, Hula, by Lisa Shea, packs quite a bit of emotional tension surrounding the lives of two young Southern girls.
Told from the point of view of the younger sister, who is just approaching puberty, Hula doesn't wander far from the girls' house, where their disturbed father tends to don a gorilla suit that becomes more sinister a symbol as the story progresses.
Although it is a semi-cliché "coming of age" theme, the situations in which the sisters find themselves are unique enough to set them apart from the young heroines of other such novels.
Hula is dark, but never despairing. The sisters observe many disturbing scenes from their bedroom windows, or from the drainpipe ditch near their driveway. However, the girls seem to have accepted their lives as is; they don't seem to question why their family might be "different."
Perhaps this is where the tension lies for a reader who already knows the many dangers that young girls may face, along with their many consequences. We feel the tension as we expect the worst, while the young girls play blithely on in their yard, unsuspecting; always managing to evade the fate we expect to befall them -- a fate we expect because so many novels about young girls seem to delight in having them experience the worst of life.
Hula sets itself apart from other novels by presenting a truly unique set of circumstances for two girls, captured masterfully by Lisa Shea in prose. The novel was reissued in 2001, but Shea has not published another novel since Hula. I'm hoping she is not a "one-hit-wonder" and that we see her again in print soon.
This is Shea's first novel.
