White Savages in the South Seas

This is a book about Polynesia after the cruise ship has left, the jet has flown off into the sunset, and the mai tai curtain has dropped on a dream that was more performance than reality. This first-hand narrative introduces the reader to the Cook Islands and an extraordinary array of their inhabitants: Susy No Pants who lives an uproarious life of pleasure, but never strays far from who she is or where she came from; a nuclear nomad from the Tuamotus who attempts suicide by ancient means in California’s Balboa Fun Zone, home of the chocolate-dipped banana; and French bureaucrats who concoct an elaborate charade to create an uplifting image of the Foreign Legion in Papeete, Tahiti. The author encounters missionaries, randy kings, dictators, sailors, drunk island tyrants and visionaries on remote isles where tourists seldom tread. Kernahan does not find paradise, although she admits to having looked for it.