The Feasts of Memory by Elias Kulukundis

The Feasts of Memory is a book that inspires all those who left their homeland behind as well as those in search of new realms. Elias Kulukundis traces the course of a family’s emigration from Kasos island to Syros, the formerly commercial capital of Greece, and then from Syros to London and New York. He is equally at home describing expatriates around a dinner table in exile or delving into the motivating passions of the Aegean islands, some of them, in the words of The New Yorker Magazine, as savage as Homer's. Elias felt he needed to write The Feasts of Memory in order to learn about himself. At the age of 29, he dramatized how a young Greek-American growing up on the edge of a golf-course in Westchester County could discover a spiritual connection to a barren island in the south Aegean Sea. The Feasts of Memory is Elias’ narrative recreation on life on the island of Kasos, when both his grandfathers were sea-captains, and both his grandmothers were knobbly-handed island women who held house and home together while the men were away at sea.