Shi•bai (shee-buy) - In Japanese culture, a term for "drama" or "play". A Hawaiian slang term meaning "smokescreen", "bullshit", "gaslighting".

 
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Memoir meets true crime in Don Mitchell's exploration of a brutal 1969 murder - of which he was himself a suspect. In Hawaiian culture, shibai means "gaslighting," a concept on which Mitchell expands in this riveting first-person account of the ripples felt from the murder of Jane Britton, the Harvard graduate student who was his friend.

Weaving together speculation and discoveries that excavate layers of truth and error, Mitchell moves through past and present, detailing his youth on the Big Island of Hawai'i, ultra running the high plains of the dormant Mauna Kea volcano, navigating the language and culture of the Nagovisi people in Bougainville, and meeting Becky Cooper, an investigative reporter in whose book about Jane's murder he is a continuing presence. Mitchell explores the way facts can shatter long-held perceptions, how love and connection transcend time and culture, and the way memory and meaning can shapeshift into shibai.

Saddle Road Press
ISBN 9781732952188
November 27, 2020
$22 (Kindle and Kobo $9.99)

Available through Amazon, Powell’s, Indiebound, Barnes & Noble, Bookshop, and Kobo.

  • Remarkable. A privilege to read ... Intimate and honest.

    — Ginia Loo, Ph.D., Punahou School (Honolulu)

  • A profound and subtle meditation on memory, aging, and our responsibility to the dead.

    — Jendi Reiter, Two Natures

  • A journey through the peripheral damage caused by years of not knowing.

    — Peter Turchi, A Muse and A Maze

  • The honesty is disarming at times, sad and heart-rending in others ... Wonderful and unusual. Read it!

    — Juliet Kono Lee, Anshu

  • In an age where reality itself is under attack, 'Shibai' reminds us that while facts are never subjective, the way we react to them can alter the course of our lives forever.

    — Richard Cox, House of the Rising Sun

  • A breathless, globe-spanning mystery that also doubles as a love story and a fascinating anthropological investigation into the human heart and mind.

    — Sean Beaudoin, Welcome Thieves

  • Compelling hybrid memoir and true-crime account ... Kafka-esque.

    — Jendi Reiter, Two Natures

  • A captivating cross-cultural journey ...

    — Michael Widmer, Journalist

  • If you loved 'We Keep the Dead Close', this is the story from Jane's close friend Don Mitchell's point of view. It's also a lyrical meditation on time and memory.

    — Becky Cooper, We Keep the Dead Close

Author Becky Cooper Comments on Instagram.

 

'Shibai' is closely intertwined with Becky Cooper's book, ‘We Keep The Dead Close’, which was recently featured in The New York Times. Becky was an investigative journalist when the case got re-opened in 2017, prompting Don Mitchell to write about the impact this story has had on his life. They are both prominently featured in each other's books. Watch Tea with Don and Becky for her full interview with him.

Left to right: Becky Cooper, Don Mitchell, and Ruth Thompson (also featured in ‘Shibai’), 2017.

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