Islands in the stream

Daniel Hays’s On Whale Island

By Josh Rogers

On Whale Island By Daniel Hays. Algonquin Books, 240 pages; $22.95.

Daniel Hays reads June 19 at the Portland Public Library (call (207) 871-1710) and June 20 at River Run Bookstore in Portsmouth, NH (call (603) 431-2100).

DANIEL HAYS: one year of island living was long enough.

At some point, there’s an impulse to take the ferry from Portland to Nova Scotia and, instead of coming back, just keep on going, maybe camp out indefinitely on some far-flung island. This seemingly hard-wired escapist trait has been mined by more than a few pop-culture artifacts. What is it about desert-island books and movies that make one salivate so? Is it the idea that only when you’re forced to survive on nothing more than your wits and some driftwood that you truly find yourself? Is it the promise of solitude? The concept of getting away from society? It’s probably all of these. But most importantly, it’s about all the cool stuff you get to build and create: Gilligan’s coconut-shell radio, Tom Hanks’s emergency dental surgery with a pair of skates in Castaway, the make-shift pig traps on this season’s Survivor, Piggy’s fire-starter glasses in Lord of the Flies, the love bungalow in Blue Lagoon, Leonardo DiCaprio’s booby traps in The Beach, and Robinson Crusoe’s earth-mound domicile are just the tip of the volcanic island.

There’s also the easily accessible diary-entry style narratives in which a lot of these ‘survivor’ epics are written. And Daniel Hays’s account of his own island experience, On Whale Island: Notes From a Place I Never Meant to Leave, doesn’t disappoint: “Day 137: The seat for our outhouse is a sperm-whale vertebrae. . . What is so special about this “seat” is how perfectly the human ass fits into it.”

The Hays clan – Daniel’s new wife Wendy, her 11-year-old son Stephan from a previous marriage, and two crazy dogs – are more The Osbournes than Swiss Family Robinson, though. Hays plays the inept, but loveable Father Ozzy. A wilderness survival expert with a master’s degree in environmental science, and an expert in martial arts, Hays is surprisingly bumbling. He can’t hunt to save his life, he’s out-of-shape, and he can barely turn around without dropping heavy winches on his feet, slipping on rocks, or blowing up clogged toilets.

Throughout the 365 days they spend on Whale Island, Hays proves himself a knowledgeable craftsmen, but always seems to ignore important details. “As I work around the house,” he observes, “I discover one of life’s everlasting truths: invention is caused not necessarily by necessity; laziness and stupidity are equally, if not more, important.” Check out his Chevy Chase in this scene: “Since our house is the highest thing around I figured the roof was the best location for the windmill, as that’s obviously where the wind is. Big Mistake. Last night the wind blew hard from the east – maybe 30 knots – and it was like sleeping in a subway station . . . I guess it’s time for plan B.” But his screwups don’t obviate trying again.

The real heart of the book is Daniel’s relationship with his new stepson, Stephan. A man in his 30s, who’d never been a father before, Daniel is often confused at Stephan’s actions, and distressed at his own volatile reactions to the boy. “Wendy tells me sometimes I don’t treat Stephan as a son, and I cannot deny it,” says Daniel. “It’s like I have no idea how to do that . . . I assume it involves unconditional love. When Stephan gets angry it feels like there is hatred for me in his whole being. How can I love that?” he wonders, musing that perhaps he is violating some law of genetics in caring for someone else’s kid. Daniel’s honesty and his non-blood relation to Stephan allow him to reveal some penetrating insights about parenting.

The pair resemble each other more than not. There’s Stephan trying to fry an egg and blowing it up all over himself and the kitchen, carelessly breaking the CD player, and making far-fetched excuses when he messes things up. When Daniel isn’t losing control and yelling at him, they’re laughing their asses off at each other’s antics. In Stephan, Daniel finds a reflection of himself as a child, and a reminder of what he was searching for in coming to the island: “The kid is an infinitely deep well of enthusiasm. When I think of Joy, it is his beaming face I see.”

Before meeting Wendy, Daniel was a wilderness guide for troubled teenagers. Although the kids were used to getting away with laziness, feeling like victims, angry and hopeless, the harsh laws of nature soon made them think better of it. “When they became aware of the uselessness of proving that they were helpless, stupid, a failure, or innocent of responsibility, growth and change became possible.”

In this case, it’s not so much Daniel’s struggle with taming a harsh island, but that he’s thrown into a sink-or-swim situation with a new family, that makes his own self-reflection possible. And it’s never better than when Daniel really is flailing around. After an ice storm, for instance, Daniel goes out to survey the sparkling beauty and promptly falls flat on his ass, sliding 30 feet down the hill. Luckily, Stephan is there to toss him the rope and haul him back up.

In the end, they leave the island and return to civilization. Wendy can’t survive without some female company, they’re running out of money, and they’re at each other’s throats. There are no radical character shifts, but Daniel has accomplished something few people do. He knows himself and his family, their strengths and limitations, as well as a shipwrecked man knows the length and breadth, every rock and tree, of his tiny kingdom.

Josh Rogers can be reached at jrogers@phx.com.