Tahiti Landfall by William Stone

Tahiti Landfall by William Stone. 1946

I found this book in the early days of the Bibliotiki and probably paid too much for it. Upon reading this Tahitian slice-o-life tale, I thought it was kind of a snooze. Mr. Stone talks about moving to Tahiti and his two live in helpers Teuru and her brother Tavae. Teuru is a teenage girl who appears topless in some of the photos included in the book. I did like that Quinn’s makes an appearance but if you are living in Tahiti in the 1940’s it better be. Eddie Lund also gets a mention.

Each chapter has a small pen and ink illustration, some nice, some unfortunate. Actually many unfortunate.

And has many cheesecake shots, er I mean photos of the natives.

Strangely, when I was trying to find out more about this book I saw that it was made into an Ester Williams movie called Pagan Love Song. The strange part is, that a day or so later I found this movie on VHS for sale at Goodwill. While the movie is not so great and doesn't follow the book that close (maybe not such a bad thing), it does have Charles Mauu, who is a famous Tahitian actor and musician. The movie also has Rita Moreno, playing a young Tahitian girl, which is just odd.

Another interesting fact, is one of the photos included in the book the adze man was also done in velvet by Leetag who was Stone’s neighbor.

From the book Leetag of Tahiti