Description
Anna is a Greek Army brat following her father from posting to posting throughout Greece just after the Civil War. These years of painful deprivation, spent observing her parents' cruel and loveless marriage, teach her the importance of love in adult life. Exploring emotion, especially through her extended family of aunts, uncles, and grandparents, she attempts to discover an adult role for her changing body and sense of self. Spanidou brilliantly portrays Anna's haunting experience in this remarkable first novel. Eschewing chronology for zoology, she reveals Anna through the various animals she encounters, allowing the child's innocence to touch on allegories that pass into knowledge. A prose style as spare and beautiful as the Greek countryside it describes makes this work pleasing as well as thought-provoking. Highly recommended. Paul E. Hutchison, English Dept., Pennsylvania State Univ., University Park Copyright 1986 Reed Business Information, Inc.
