Being sixteen is hard enough, but toss that 1965 sixteen-year-old into American-Somoa, where people summon turtles and sharks with song, cure disease by appeasing spirits, and feast on the reproductive organs of sea worms, and you have a coming-of age story, where Nancy Pokerwinski…and Somoa… strive to find the right balance of two colliding cultures. Where modern fashions, music and conveniences threatens ties to Somoa’s past, Nancy’s new friendships, romances, and interests on the island undermine longstanding ones back home.
