She began with short stories — a critically acclaimed short-story collection titled "House of Thieves." Then she wrote her first novel, "The Descendants," a heartwarming tale that is both a tragedy and a comedy.

Kaui Hart Hemmings is an extraordinary writer, and in "The Descendants" she follows a family's reaction to a boating accident that puts Joanie, the wife and mother, into a coma.

Because Joanie's life has been pretty fast and loose, her lawyer husband Matt and their adolescent daughters are shocked into facing real life — or death — since her chances of waking up are almost nil. So Matt and Alex and Scottie get reacquainted around Joanie's hospital bed.

It's clear that the girls are accustomed to motherly discipline — which is like not having parents — when they suddenly start talking to their dad, albeit in a language with which he is unfamiliar. Thankfully, Matt is a genuine guy who wants to step up in a time of crisis, but because his head has long been buried in law books, he struggles with this tragedy and makes a lot of mistakes.

It's a believable, realistic story with narrative polish befitting a much more experienced novelist. Speaking from her home in San Francisco, Hemmings said her book was inspired by people she knew growing up in Hawaii, "although I chose one personality and attached it to another person's head.

"The boating accident actually happened to the father of a friend of mine, and he was in a coma for a year. There was also a real land deal that I based on the Damon Family Trust."

This was an 80-year-old trust that got big news coverage in Hawaii three years ago when 70 percent of its assets of $860 million were distributed among 20 heirs. It was the largest family trust in U.S. history.

In the novel, Matt King is considered one of Hawaii's luckiest residents because he is sitting on top of a similar trust that began when one of his missionary ancestors married a Hawaiian princess.

Hemmings provides the voice for Matt in a thoroughly convincing example of a woman thinking like a man. "I just like writing from the point of view of someone who is my opposite. I like playing a role. It's just fun to slip into someone else's skin. It keeps the writing challenging and fun."

But she says that once she started writing, without any kind of outline, she just got going. "I was not consciously trying to sound like a man."

When Matt discovers that Joanie had been having an affair before her accident, he is shocked. He vacillates between anger and sadness as he tries to deal with something he cannot discuss with his dying wife. According to Hemmings, such a plot twist made the narrative easier to complete. "The worst-case scenario comes true, and I just kind of went with it."