Mothers and Sons by Theodor Kallifatides (The Siege of Troy) is the kind of book that reverberates for the reader long after it's read. It's an inherently poignant memoir that deals with the 68-year-old author's trip from Sweden, where he lives, to his homeland of Greece to visit his 92-year-old mother. Because Kallifatides knows that any visit to his mother could be his last, he resolves to write about her and to capture her spirit. It's an act of love, and something of an act of preemptive mourning, though as Kallifatides writes, "Love is like Rome. With a bit of luck, all roads lead there."
At the same time, Kallifatides revisits his long-dead father's recollections, compiled at the author's request, and begins to translate them for his grandchildren. "They are too young to ask me to do this," he acknowledges, "and by the time they are grown-up enough to ask, I will probably not be available." The memoir oscillates between Kallifatides's father's memories, Kallifatides's memories of his father, and Kallifatides's attempt to commit a substantial depiction of his mother to literary memory.
Kallifatides is a prominent writer in his adopted country, and his elegant and evocative writing is translated beautifully from the Swedish by Marlaine Delargy. This is no tell-all memoir. " 'What is said in the home should not be repeated in the square,' the ancient Greeks used to say." Kallifatides is content to simply share his family's history through the powerful lens of love. --Elizabeth DeNoma, executive editor, DeNoma Literary Services, Seattle, Wash.