Meet Hawai‘i’s Newest Literary and Film Star, Zoë Eisenberg

Zoë Eisenberg. Photo: Credit Susanna Anderson

In her debut novel, Significant Others, Hawai‘i Island writer Zoë Eisenberg explores the complexities of female friendship and how it shifts over time and circumstances. The book, published in early February by HarperCollins, has generated early buzz, with Kirkus Reviews describing it as an “accomplished first novel [that] artfully limns romantic crosscurrents in a thoroughly contemporary setting.”

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A month earlier, the 35-year-old made her solo directorial and screenwriting debut with the release of Chaperone, which won the Grand Jury Prize for Breakouts Feature at this year’s Slamdance Film Festival, known for launching breakthrough projects. The film tells the story of an unambitious 29-year-old connected to an 18-year-old who mistakes her for a high school student. Chaperone was shot in Hilo and features a predominantly Asian American and Pacific Islander cast.

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“The reviews I’ve been getting for Chaperone and Significant Others have been really encouraging and supportive, but it’s funny, I still feel pretty regional,” Eisenberg says. “I try not to spend much time on social media. I don’t have it on my phone, so most of the people I feel like I’m connecting with about these projects are still here in Hawai‘i.”

Eisenberg began writing at 18, while studying creative writing at the University of Lynchburg in Virginia. While Significant Others is her third completed novel, it’s the first one published—and by a major publisher. “I had a different agent maybe about 10 years ago that went out with a previous work, and we didn’t sell it,” she says. “This agency that I’m with right now is really wonderful, so I think it was a lot easier for me to get this sold because of the representation I had.”

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In Significant Others, two roommates since college reexamine their codependent friendship while in their late 30s. The women co-own a home, co-parent a rescued dog and shape their lives around each other. When one becomes pregnant after a one-night stand, they make plans to raise the child together, until the baby’s father resurfaces.

Eisenberg’s novel was inspired by female friendships she had in her 20s, which evolved over time. She calls it a “platonic divorce story,” delving into relationship shifts as people change. “What is my life going to look like if I’m not putting all my energy into a romantic relationship? What is my life going to look like if I really entice friendships as my primary relationships because they have the capacity to be more long standing? These were the kind of questions I was asking,” she says.

Originally from Connecticut, Eisenberg grew up spending summers with her grandparents in Waikīkī and moved to Hawai‘i Island in 2012. The roots she established in the Islands inspired the setting for her novel. “It never occurred to me to set [Significant Others] anywhere else because this is where I live, where my creative community lives and where I saw the story taking place,” she says.

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She began screenwriting and directing projects with her partner, Phillips Payson, after moving to Hawai‘i, then ventured to her solo project. She got the idea for Chaperone after being asked to a party by a 17-year-old boy who mistook her for a teenager when she was 29. Although she declined, Eisenberg wondered what kind of woman would have accepted. “Where would she have to be in her life, what would she have to feel, for her to think a ‘yes’ was the best decision to make in the moment?” she says.

You might think that writing novels and directing films would more than fulfill her creative spirit, but Zoë Eisenberg is also a circus producer. During the pandemic, she co-produced and livestreamed circus performances out of the otherwise empty Hilo Palace Theater, which were later distributed by PBS Hawai‘i.

zoeeisenberg.com, @zoeisenberg