Book Club Discussion Questions and Guide for Sharks in the Time of Saviors by Kawai Strong Washburn

1. In Sharks in the Time of Saviors, Washburn writes in five distinct voices, one for each member of the family. What effect does this multiplicity of voices have? How are the narrative voices differentiated, and how do they function collectively?
2. Nainoa's trajectory in the novel initially adheres to a familiar hero archetype: he reveals mysterious abilities at a young age and feels an immense and confusing desire to heal the ailments of his community. How does Washburn complicate or subvert this archetype? Is Nainoa's characterization reflected in the novel's title?
3. Hawaiʻi plays a vital role, both contextually and conceptually, in Sharks in the Time of Saviors. While the Flores children all eventually attend college on the American mainland, Malia and Augie remain in Hawaiʻi. How does each character's relationship with Hawaiʻi shift over the course of the novel? How is their concept of "home" impacted by Hawaiʻi's legacy of colonization within an increasingly globalized landscape?
4. How does the family's experience of racial identity and foreignness differ across settings? Are there instances where race interacts with other facets of their identities? Why does the Flores family frequently describe white culture humorously and derogatorily?
5. The Flores children come of age on the precipice of extreme poverty. Working two jobs to support herself in college, Kaui rhetorically addresses her parents: "Look at me, Mom and Dad, I learned how to hustle through osmosis, all those years at home with both of you on the edge of economic cliffs" (236). How does Washburn illustrate the recurrent traumas and anxieties of poverty? Where in the novel does a lack of resources impede success or exacerbate conflict?
6. In adolescence, Kaui, Nainoa, and Dean all aspire to transcend their material circumstances. Dean refers to his hypothetical basketball career, claiming "I'm going to take us all away from this ... . Noa might be special but he's not money" (61). How do these aspirations, and their financial potential, influence relationships and identities? In what ways are Kaui and Dean's earthly talents treated differently than Nainoa's supernatural abilities?
7. What role do mythology and spirituality play in the Flores family? When does mythology provide solace and guidance, and when does it deceive? How is spiritual mythology reflected or perverted by the American myth of meritocracy?
8. While learning to climb in California, Kaui claims to have "lived in the landscape", having "slipped ... .into the veined cracks of sheer walls of limestone ... .ceilinged by a thunder-brained sky" (155). Where else does Washburn dissolve the boundaries between characters and their surrounding natural environments, and to what effect?
9. Initially, Nainoa serves as the apex of the novel's narrative and thematic tensions. How does his death impact the novel's narrative structure? How does his absence disrupt the familial structure?
10. Neither Kaui nor Dean ultimately achieve their adolescent ambitions: What do the family members' final circumstances suggest about the relationship between individual exceptionalism and systematic disenfranchisement? How does the Flores family remain subjugated by oppressive forces? How have they circumvented these forces, or found alternative modes of living?
11. Washburn excludes Augie's narrative voice until the final chapter of the novel, after the return of his mental faculties. Why was Augie's perspective omitted until the novel's culmination, and why was it included then?
12. Malia and Augie encounter the legendary and ominous "night marchers" in the novel's first chapter, on the eve of Nainoa's conception. How do you interpret their presence in the final chapter? What does the novel's conclusion suggest about the relationship between the spiritual and material worlds?

Unless otherwise stated, this discussion guide is reprinted with the permission of MCD. Any page references refer to a USA edition of the book, usually the trade paperback version, and may vary in other editions.