The Feasts of Memory - 9781931807111

The famous Greek shipping family of Kulukundis is the source of inspiration for a clever combination of travel book, Kulukundis' autobiography, and a collection of the family's stories. The tales told around the dinner tables of his family in exile recreate the ancestors' life on the island of Kasos.

These stories are imbued with the sophistication and wit of a Greek expatriate, but at the same time they delve deep into the motivating passions of the Aegean islands. Some of them reveal skeletons in the closet, and some, in the words of The New Yorker Magazine, are "as savage as Homer's."

An obliging Uncle George accompanied the author through the labyrinth of tales, narrating and explaining along the way. Uncle George's uncle, Doctor Nikolakis, was a honey-tongued bachelor who became the character of the longest story in The Feasts of Memory.

Later the same doctor turned into the fateful hero of Kulukundis' opera libretto Three Brides for Kasos, based on Nikolakis' unusual destiny. In a whirlwind drama in which two island families vie for the hand of this peculiar bachelor, a tug of war between old and new mores leads to a tragicomedy where laughter bursts like the sun through an Aegean storm.

The Feasts of Memory is a book that charms all those who left their homeland behind as well as those in search of new realms.