North of Ithaka : A Journey Home Through a Family's Extraordinary Past

by Gage, Eleni N.

• ISBN13: 9780312340285
• ISBN10: 0312340281
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2005-05-01
• Publisher: St. Martin's Press

Summary

'A brilliant story....an interesting saga of immigration, belonging and community.' -The Observer(UK) L eaving behind a sparkling social life and successful career, Eleni Gage moved from New York City to Lia-the remote Greek village where her father was born and her grandmother murdered, and which her father, Nicholas Gage, made famous twenty years ago with his international bestseller Eleni.Although her aunts warned she would invite the curse her grandmother placed on any member of her family who returned to Greece, Eleni was determined to come to terms with her family's tragic history. Along the way, she learned to dodge bad omens, battle scorpions on her pillow, and the shadows in her heart. She also came to understand that Greece and its memories were not only dark and death-filled, and that memories of the dead can bring new life to the present and hope to the future. Part travel memoir and part family saga, North of Ithakais, above all, a journey home.

Author Biography

ELENI N. GAGE is the child of a Greek-born father and an American mother, and has traveled between those two cultures her whole life. When she was almost three, her family moved to Athens, Greece. After five years there, they settled in Massachusetts, where Eleni lived until she graduated from Harvard University with a degree in Folklore and Mythology, specializing in Modern Greek Folklore.

Now a freelance writer and the beauty editor of People magazine, Eleni has had articles appear in InStyle, Travel+Leisure, Elle, The New York Times, Parade, Real Simple, American Scholar, and many other publications. She divides her time between a tiny high-rise apartment in New York City and a tiny mountaintop house in the village of Lia, Greece.

Table of Contents

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS	ix
ONE Restoration	1	(18)
TWO Forward Back	19	(32)
THREE Divine Intervention	51	(28)
FOUR Playing with Fire	79	(26)
FIVE Mother Tongues	105	(28)
SIX Home Sweet Homeland	133	(26)
SEVEN Doorways to the Dead	159	(28)
EIGHT Power Politics	187	(30)
NINE The Future Imperfect	217	(28)
TEN The Stone Pomegranate	245	(28)
A TASTE OF LIA	273	(10)
BIBLIOGRAPHY	283