But in Kumu Kahua's new staged production of Yamanaka's novel, Yamanaka gets not one, but two, Loveys.
"The idea," said director John H.Y. Wat, "is that there are two personas. One is the character herself, played by Lyana Atsumi, and the other is the inner Lovey, the narrator, who is the link with the audience, played by Michelle Sekine."
Sekine and Atsumi look spookily alike, and both look like Yamanaka, to the point where Wat wondered if Yamanaka herself showed up for the casting call. "It was Atsumi, who had never acted before, but who was so impressed by Lois-Ann's book that she wanted to be a part of it somehow. There were a lot of connections to her own life."
"She LOOKS like me!" says Yamanaka, sort of awed at this cosmic character connection. "It's like seeing my own self in the room! Ly even had big hair back in the '80s, and you know me - I love big hair."
"I was really moved by the emotional levels the actors bring to it," she said. "Hearing the words I wrote in someone else's mouth ... it's so interesting! The strength of the male voices was revealing. I had not realized how violent pidgin can be, and didn't think of it as gendered, but there's a real difference between the way men and women speak pidgin.
"I just kept thinking, Oh! My poor father! He's going to see this and cry, 'cause, you know, the performances move you to tears. And you laugh! Some of it is very funny, side-splitting, like when the characters bump heads. THAT'S not in the book!"
Yamanaka has helped buy out the Feb. 5 performance as a fund-raiser for Bamboo Ridge. "It's like my own little self-picked funeral," says she. (Some tickets are still available for the fund-raiser; call the Bamboo Ridge office at 599-4823.)
"Wild Meat and the Bully Burgers" is a kind of short-story novel, and concerns Lovey's coming-of-age in Hilo during the long-ago 1960s, a time redolent with countryside isolation and far-off cultural influences from both sides of the Pacific. Although each story - populated by the same characters - stands on its own, and there are thematic threads, there is no real narrative to the book.
The overall effect of the book, however, has elicited wide praise from readers and critics locally and internationally.
The Kumu Kahua adaptation of this hot property is an "exciting coup," according to Kumu Kahua head Dennis Carroll. "Wild Meat and the Bully Burgers" will be issued in paperback in April, in conjunction with Yamanaka's next novel, "Blu's Hanging," which is set on Molokai.
"The trick was to tie together the threads," said Wat. The adaptation was handled by Keith Kashiwada, who performed similar surgery on Gary Pak's "The Watcher of Waipuna" last year.
"It went pretty well, I think," said Wat. "There's a sense of the 'bigger' story, and all the characters are storytellers in their own way."
Why adapt a short story?
"There aren't too many local playwrights writing about Hawaii or the Hawaii experience, and that's all Kumu does," said Wat. "At the same time, there are some very rich works out there about Hawaii written as stories and novels."
"Wild Meat" is being translated into foreign languages, and a British edition was recently issued. Yamanaka was flown to London for two days of chin-wagging with the European press.
"A big blast! They're so ultra-organized, yeah?" said Yamanaka. "Oh, I got so sick of talking about myself, and you know me, I love talking about myself."
In England, she became interested in the regional English cultures and languages, "like Scottish, which reminds me of pidgin. Same kind, but different. Yeah?"
On stage
What: Adaptation of Lois-Ann Yamanaka's "Wild Meat and the Bully Burgers" presented by Kumu Kahua