A Novel About Mental Illness, Family and Love: The Book of Katerina

During his childhood, Auguste Corteau, born Petros Hatzopoulos, remembers his mother descending further and further into psychotic despair. She tried setting fire to the house with him in it, and tried to kill herself with alcohol and pills, yet the hardest thing ‘was the stoniness of her depression, her utter unreachability, the feeling that, no matter how madly I loved her, I couldn’t make her smile, much less get her off the bed.’

When he has suffered his own bouts of clinical depression, he has had to remind himself of the love of those around him.

His novel The Book of Katerina, a fictionalised account of his mother’s life-long struggle with bipolar disorder, was first published in Greek in 2013 and became a huge success, selling 50,000 copies. It’s now being launched in English (translated by Claire Papamichail) by Wales-based Parthian Books as both a paperback and an audiobook narrated by Anna Savva, otherwise known as Lugaretzia of The Durrells.

It was a great pleasure for me to be the editor of the English translation, and so I thought I'd write something about it here to coincide with the British mental health awareness week.

Acclaimed British author Glen James Brown has called The Book of Katerina: ‘a gleefully sardonic novel about illness and family, and how we can never quite cure ourselves of either.’

Although it’s an attempt to understand Katerina’s torments, it’s an unstoppably energetic and entertaining read as with earthy, no-holds-barred humour she observes the saga of her extended family’s ups and downs in the city of Thessaloniki over three generations.

There are fascinating glimpses of the backdrop. At the dawn of the twentieth century in Turkey, Katerina’s poor Jewish grandmother ‘with hair as red as the beard of Judas’ meets a Greek merchant who, a good Christian, agrees to marry the ‘Christ-killer’ but asks her to forswear her true name and lineage ‘or rather demands; men rarely asked for things in those days’.

Thanks to their hard work, at the start of the 1920s they are practically well-off, the children at a good school with piano lessons and foreign languages. ‘And then the Asia Minor Catastrophe happens and they suddenly find themselves in Upper Town, Thessaloniki, without two pennies to rub together.’

After their family dreams are blighted in an instant, the next generation pursue material wealth above everything else – including genuine love. While there are already signs of the hereditary illness that will haunt the family, the narrator also holds the lack of love between parents and siblings accountable for many of their problems.

‘When four siblings out of four end up on medication by the age of forty,’ says Katerina, ‘something very bad must have happened during their childhood.’

She then seems to take things to the other extreme, smothering her own son with love as he is growing up, to the detriment of her marriage.

It was years after his mother’s death that Auguste decided he had to write the book as a kind of love letter to his mother, recreating her as a fictional character. It opens with the scene when he found her dead, stark naked on her bed, having committed suicide. He was in his early twenties when his mother took her life following years of struggling with mental health issues.

She says, ‘I’m giving Petros the biggest gift within my powers: I shall release him from the lifelong duty of nursing a mother who’s constantly deteriorating, spare him the years of dementia that are sure to come… I know this will destroy him, that he’ll need years and years to recover from the blow…’ And then she takes 400 pills.

No wonder that when the book was adapted for the stage, the play left the audience in tears.

When he decided to write the book, he says:

‘I had to recall the exact timbre of her humour, the fieriness of her fury, her tenderness and her despair. It was indeed cathartic, but also painful – which is why I wrote the book in white heat, over a couple of frantic weeks.

‘Back when I wrote the book, it seemed to me way too bleak to be enjoyable. But it turns out I was wrong.’

The Book of Katerina – Parthian Books

The author will be presenting the book at the Mani Literary Festival in October.

Greek Author Auguste Corteau Breaks into the World Market (greekreporter.com)

The Best Things in Life

A couple of days ago, I took my friend Ali to the ferry - she'd been staying with me for a holiday - and went into Remezzo bar on the quay to buy a couple of frappe coffees for us, when I realised I didn’t have any change. I sheepishly handed Popi behind the counter a fifty and apologised for not having any small notes, psila.

‘Na’seh kala kai na echeis panta hondra,’ she replied. May you be well, and always have large notes.

Last year, my freelance contract as commissioning editor came to an end, reducing my income in a stroke by about two thirds. I was overdue for a change of scene, but for someone who’s always cautious about money, I won’t lie – it was scary.

While continuing to work as a freelance editor and writer, I decided to use the opportunity to set up on my own as a literary agent. Having worked as an agent before, I know it can pay in the long run – but ‘in the long run’ are key words, since it’s all commission based on sales, and there are vast amounts of work involved in setting up new contacts alone. Keeping the faith that I’m doing the right thing has been hard. As if that weren't tough enough, I’ve also started trying to write a new book. And more recently I’ve been helping out at the Tilos Park information office – which pays very little, if anything at all.

And yet, I've never been happier. And since I returned to Tilos after my travels in April and May, which a friend nicely called 'island-hopping' (Rhodes-England-Australia), I've been appreciating the little things about life here that I love. Beyond the simple pleasure of being welcomed back by practically everyone I see, this week has been full of special moments. The more I get to know people on the island, the more I speak of the language, the richer life here becomes.

Michaelia looks after the ancient chapel just below my window and often stops on her way past for a chat. She’ll soon be living up at the monastery of Panteleimon for a month, she said, to help with preparations for the festival. On Friday afternoon she was on her way back from the church service on the eve of Psychosavvato, ‘Saturday of Souls’, one of three services to commemorate the dead, the previous being at the start of Lent, Apokreo. She told me to go inside and get a plate, so she could give us some kollyva, the Greek Orthodox memorial food made with sesame, sultanas, almonds and wheat berries.

That evening, Ali and I went to Sofia’s kafeneion for a drink, which turned into several thanks to the generosity of Nikos, who told Sofia so quickly to bring us beers that she’d already opened them before we could protest. He regaled us with stories of his cooking. When we’d first arrived, the kafeneion was quiet, but soon there were six men gathered around a card table, four playing and two watching. Sofia sighed and said ‘I watch but I don’t understand,’ and joined us at our table instead, telling us about the cattle she and her husband used to keep. Although people rarely milk the goats here on Tilos, she uses their own goats’ milk to make rizogalo, rice pudding, which she’d be cooking the next day. Ali, a very generous guest, went to pick some up for us.

On Saturday, arriving a little early at dance class in Livadia, I chatted with a friend called Seva – one of several Sevas on the island. She asked me where I live in Megalo Horio, and said she used to live there when she was seven. She was born in Mikro Horio, around the time when everyone started abandoning the village; when the junior school closed down in the 1960s, they had to move to Megalo Horio where the other school was. ‘They were difficult years, those,’ she said. ‘People were leaving, going to Australia and America. Boys started work early in those days, but there was no work on Tilos. So when we all finished school, my parents took us to live on Rhodes.’

After a week of changeable weather, cool with clouds, the weather turned hot and sunny on Sunday, and Ali and I walked to Skafi beach through the green valley and spent hours in and out of the water while Lisa chased ants. In the evening, we ate once again at Kali Kardia (‘the Good Heart’), which was lively with the usual suspects from the village. We ate shrimp saganaki – shrimp in a spicy tomato sauce with feta – and souvlakia with cold white wine.

Tuesday evening after Ali left, returning home after superb kalamari and relaxing conversation at Omonia with my friend Anna, the moon was already bright over Megalo Horio. The only sounds as I walked home were the sheep, sheep’s bells, and Scops owls.

In the morning, awake early, I walked Lisa to Eristos and saw hazy sunlight pouring over the top of Amali mountain, still grey in shadow, and the dew gleaming in the tamarisk trees; while to the right, the orange and flesh-coloured cliffs already in full sunlight reflected their colours in the still water. We had the whole stretch of beach to ourselves. Along the road there and back, there were bees in the trees – the acacia and terebinth.

Lisa always stops outside Michalis’ house and wags her tail hopefully until he goes inside to get her a treat. But yesterday when I was walking alone down the seafront in Livadia, I heard ‘Ela Jenni!’ I turned around and saw Michali at a friend’s table, proffering a forkful of something, which I took and ate. Mmm, delicious. ‘Fish roe?’ I asked. ‘Yes, tuna eggs.’ Then he offered me a shot glass of raki to wash it down. ‘Make a wish,’ said his friend.

When I set out from the village in the afternoon to walk Lisa, old Polixeni with her black clothes and her walking stick shouted across the street, ‘Are you not talking to me? When I love you and respect you…’ I greeted her and she swiftly crossed the street and gently hit me with her stick.

I slowed down as I drove across the island from Megalo Horio to Livadia this morning, passing the abandoned village of Mikro Horio, and as I noticed the purple thyme flowers and pink oleander along the road, I thought again about Popi’s lovely expression about the large notes. That would be nice too, but thankfully life in Tilos is about much more than that. Some visitors to the Tilos Park office asked if living here was sometimes boring. Never.

Alone (almost) at the Acropolis - Atmospheric Athens

'I can't believe there's nobody here.'
My cousin and my mum came to Athens for the first time this week, arriving at the end of November for my birthday. Although - except for the first day, my birthday - the weather was cold and the sky grey, they were amazed how quiet it was. No queues, no crowds.

'It's so cheap here. And I didn't expect people to be so friendly in a big city.'
We've been lucky - at the last minute I found the airbnb website, and a whole apartment to rent for less than 200 euros for the week. I'd worried that it might be too far away from the centre, but it's been an easy half hour walk to the heart of Athens, via the ancient stadium and national gardens and Temple of Zeus.

We practically had the Acropolis to ourselves. The ancient agora - where you could say democracy began - was deserted. I love seeing places afresh through someone else's eyes. My mum said she never expected so much green space around the Acropolis, so much of the ancient city uncluttered by modern buildings.



So it was raining... 'It's a UNESCO world heritage site - you'd think there would be people here all the time,' said my cousin. Much better to come for a city break late in the year than in the heat of summer.

And when it's raining, sometimes you just have to duck into a cafe... We had mezes of winter salad and hummus and marinated anchovies with raki to drink, for 16 euros at the Ivis cafe in Psirri.

I'd never been to Pangrati until I rented this apartment, but it's a great neighbourhood with food shops, bars and cafes. We ate out three nights at To Mavro Provato (The Black Sheep); on our last night we ate a salad, big prawns and fennel in ouzo, prawn linguine, and the superb signature dish of tender lamb wrapped in paper with lots of herbs and cheese and baked in the oven - all for 48 euros including wine for the three of us. But we also ate very good food for a mere 22 euros for three, including wine, at Dionysus, 'The Quick Greek', just around the corner.



And I took mum to my favourite bakery on Sarri St. 'You never think of Greek bakeries being so good, but these are as wonderful as the ones in France.'

I'm not exclusively gallivanting in Athens this week - I'm also visiting the lovely people at EmBIO clinic every couple of days for blood test and scan while I do the pre-IVF meds. Jabbed myself in belly with needles a record five times yesterday. But yesterday was reported to be responding 'very well, excellent' (gold star!), and today: no injections! And tomorrow I get a nice long sleep while they take out some eggs and see how they look...

Rhodes in November

For some time now, I've been fascinated by cafe culture in Rhodes. It seems to be an essential, vibrant part of the local scene, especially for the under-forties. And yesterday I found further proof.

Turning a corner into a usually empty pedestrian street just up the hill from the New Market, just north of the Old Town, I was stunned to find not one brand new cafe, but four. It was about 2.30 p.m., the break in the middle of the working day, summer was back after a brief hiatus, and each cafe was busy.

   

I asked a waiter if it was true, that these were all new, and he grinned and confirmed they'd all opened in the last few months, with a little shrug as if to say, 'You know, that's how it is here...' Pop-up cafes. And I wouldn't be surprised if they're all owned by the same guy. 

Usually trendy Casa La Femme was closed for refurbishment, and the Yacht Club Cafe was practically deserted. The four cafes that fill a stretch of Dimitriou Theodoraki Street are the place to be - for now. 

And the place not to be is the Old Town, which is wonderful. 
The Street of the Knights is bare, doorways open to reveal lush gardens.

This time of year is when I love Rhodes. It's warm and sunny, but quiet. Most of the tourist shops and restaurants are closed. You can see the walls. Only once did a waiter hurry up from his chair in a cafe and say 'Yes please!' But my backpack was empty, gradually filling up as the day progressed with shopping.


Down by the now-peaceful harbour, across a calm, deep blue sea, the mountains of Turkey were clear in every small detail, layers and layers of mountains stretching off into the distant haze. A man cycled by slowly wearing cut-offs and flip-flops; a snorkeller dived down into the sea, his flippers forming a V. Cats wandered among the rocks, soaking up the sun. 

Back in the Old Town, in backstreets, occasional groups of men sat outside drinking and listening to Greek songs played loud, some sitting on old crates that bowed under their weight. It was a holiday, and people were celebrating, and shouted hello. I had a smile on my face all day. 

Tales from Megalo Horio

The kantina is closed and locked up, moved off Eristos beach in preparation for winter storms; the weather is mild; the busy days of travelling and moving house are over. In the words of Italian yoga teacher Anna, who was kindly giving classes this month: 'Now relax the body, and breathe normally.' 



I've been somewhat distracted by the beautiful view from my new office - and particularly by the little church, the ekklisaki, just below my window. I've always rather liked it, and now I'm a little obsessed. Inside, there's an oil lamp burning, and frescoes covering much of the walls and ceiling.

The village of Megalo Horio is built into a hillside that's littered intriguingly with stones from many centuries of inhabitation. The house that we are renting, although the front additions are quite modern, has a stone archway on the main part of the house, with '1868' painted over, and the courtyard has a couple of old millstones lying about. Doorways down the alley have what look like early Christian crosses above them, while others have Turkish inscriptions.

I took Lisa for a walk up to the castle a couple of days ago. She was indulgent about my need to take photographs and inspect the fading frescoes of old chapels, now exposed to the elements, on the way up. She noted that I didn't need quite so many photo stops on the way down. It's surprising what a steep old path it is; it was clearly meant to make access by invaders as tough as possible. People used the fortress at the top to retreat to in times of danger, but lived lower down the slopes, between the castle and the current village.

From the clouds, it was clear that rain was coming, but there was enough bright sunlight to make for spectacular views, as always, from the medieval walls built over an ancient acropolis.

(They don't build things like they used to, it seemed on the way down...)

Yesterday, having finished my deadlines for the week, I thought I'd pop down to the museum to see if Vicky knew anything about the church. Of course she did. She confirmed that it is dedicated to Ayios Ioannis Theologos, St John the Theologian, whose monastery is in Patmos. 

As to its age, she said it was 'post-Byzantine', or medieval. I thought it must be old, I said, because it's built on top of one of the old walls made of massive stones. 'The wall is Hellenistic,' said Vicky, 'from the time of Alexander the Great.'

'All these little churches were privately owned,' she continued. 'That one was in the family of Stelios's father's uncle, Apostolis Logothetis. He was a teacher, and during the Italian occupation he was persecuted because he taught Greek secretly. It was against the law to teach Greek, or even to speak it on the main street here.' She gestured to the road through Megalo Horio, underneath the museum. 

'Because the Greek language was forbidden, and only Italian language was taught, gradually the parents took their children out of school. When I met my mother-in-law, she was illiterate.' 

Up the steps to where we were standing walked Polixeni Logothetou; in her late eighties or so, always dressed in black and with a few friendly words to offer, she was carrying her wooden walking stick in a jaunty fashion over her shoulder, a bag of vegetables hanging off it. Vicky told her I was asking about the little church, and she confirmed its connection to Apostolis Logothetis. 'Polixeni knows,' said Vicky, 'she is one of Stelios's father's godparents - one of seven.' 

'Ah, the old folks, they're all gone now!' said Polixeni with slightly misty eyes, then proceeded on her way to cook lunch.

So the little church continues, having seen much history. This morning just after eight, one of the village ladies stopped to say hello outside our house, crossing paths with Menelaos who was carrying bags of shopping and getting a morning welcome from Lisa the affectionate semi-Labrador. 'Where are you going, neighbour?' asked Stelios. 'Well, I'm going to Theologos, and then to do some jobs...' She disappeared inside the church.

Shortly after, I was pondering the strange things you hear shouted across the alleys and rooftops here from time to time ('The mulberries are at the house!' - surely some secret code...) when Vicky arrived to give me some decorations for the house, old embroidered cloths, handmade. As she left, she pointed to a stone by our gate, one I've been thinking looks like a carved chunk of old marble with a hole for a wooden gate-post. 'This is ancient,' she said, and continued in a hurry to go and open the museum.

Well, the sun is shining in a clear sky, so we must be off to enjoy the day...

***

NB: For those interested in houses to rent or buy in Megalo Horio, I'm gradually putting some information on the News page of the blog.

****

My Facebook photos of the walk we did today!
https://www.facebook.com/jen.barclay.33/posts/10151967376785803

Moving, and a Museum

Hard as it is to believe, this week we are leaving the house next door to the honey factory. A few weeks ago, I tasted this summer's honey, and it was delicious. Sadly, I'll no longer be able to crack jokes about life being sweet when you live next door to the honey factory...

When I first came here two and a half years ago, this house was just perfect for me. But now there's a fisherman who's been known to clomp in trailing seaweed from his wellies, dripping bloody saltwater from a plastic bag full of freshly cleaned fish while I'm in the middle of editing a book, or on a Skype call to a client; now there's a half-Labrador sprawling herself across the sofa. Life has not stood still, and I wouldn't want it any other way.

I've been keeping an eye out for a bigger place for the last year, but nothing felt quite good enough to draw me away from the pleasures of living in the middle of nowhere, with no noise outside at night that isn't a bird or insect, and no lights to detract from the millions of stars up above. 



Then during the summer, Antonis from Megalo Horio asked me if I'd take some photos of a house he had in the middle of the village and put them online to see if he could find a buyer or tenant. I looked around and thought, hmmm. The problem with the current house is that it's basically all one big room with a mezzanine, and call me a wimp but I don't like being woken up at fisherman o'clock by cigarette smoke. The house in the village still has a view of the sea and hills, but it also has... an office for me. This could make life in the Barclay-Logothetis household rather less frosty on certain days. And being in the middle of Megalo Horio should bring a whole new set of stories.

So we're moving, though in true Tilos style, it's happening slowly, as we have to wait for Yianni the internet technician to return from some travels and connect us up in the new place. I can't complain as I was away the weeks before, in Crete and then Athens.

In fact, Stelios and I went to Athens together, leaving Lisa with her cousin Ari, a German shepherd or 'wolf-dog' who lives with Tilos's well-loved former taxi drivers, Nikos and Toula. Our mission was to see doctors; all those tests I've been having are to investigate why I've miscarried three times in the last two years. We had appointments with a few doctors, to get information and perhaps choose one to go forward with. 

The week was sometimes difficult, of course, but it was an important thing for us to go through as a couple. And we enjoyed relaxing together - something we haven't had time to do all summer, since BC (Before Cantina). We found a room at the lovely Phidias hotel in Thissio, so peaceful you'd hardly know you were in central Athens. 



On the last day I had to give blood in the morning and then prepare for possible investigative surgery in the afternoon, which meant not consuming anything all day until we saw the doctor. I am not good at being hungry and thirsty, especially when nervous. While wandering around Athens looking for distractions, we came across a museum of folk art/decorative arts; not usually our thing, perhaps, but for 2 euros a person we decided to give it a try. 

Although the museum (www.melt.gr) sadly lacked explanations and details of the customs involved, exhibits included local dress from many parts of Greece, including Tilos. Most fascinating for me were the elaborate, heavy, metalwork of the women's head-dresses, some originating from the Dodecanese, and the intricate carving of everyday objects like distaffs for weaving. 

  

There was also a whole section devoted to one of my favourite Greek artists, Theofilos, who painted everyone with a smile and a moustache.

The last doctor we saw - with a moustache but not much of a smile - definitely wasn't for me, so I didn't have the surgery with him after all. He showed a bizarre lack of understanding of what it might be like for a woman to be still crazily trying to have a child at the age of 44. At least he provided me with a nice emotional opening to a story I've just drafted this morning, which the Daily Mail have expressed interest in publishing (fingers crossed).

It's very windy outside today, but brilliant sunshine, and the first rain of autumn on Monday has made everything feel fresh and alive. Time to go and walk the lovely half-Labrador Lisa, and maybe pack or unpack some boxes. 

**

PS We just walked my bike up to the new house - Lisa is delighted that it's no longer 35 degrees outside - and found a lovely welcome note from a reader who's in Tilos this week. Thank you! Here are some more photos of/from the new house... That's a lemon tree in the courtyard!