Jeff Lee

Found and Lost in Paradise Jeff Lee

In 1956, teenagers Bill Benton and Brittany "Bambi" Macey sail to the South Pacific on a stolen yawl and confront demanding characters and turbulent events that erase what remains of their adolescent innocence. Under the benevolent mentorship of Oliana Teriierooiterai, a prominent Marquesan chieftess on the island of Hiva Oa, they learn to meet the challenges of surviving in and bringing a child into an alien world while being exposed to myriad manifestations of adult sexuality. Bill and Bambi move beyond a taboo-rejecting, adolescent rebellion to an existence where the only restraints to satisfying one's appetites are consent and imagination. The inclusion of significant doses of greed, betrayal, cannibalism, and a beautiful and faithful mahu - a third gender person named Mahana who becomes both friend and lover - creates a story set in a world that is far different from the America that Bill and Bambi have left behind. The new world in which they find themselves is one in which conflicts are resolved by fate, courage, perseverance, a child, and a strategic return.