This is a powerful story about family and adoption, and the tensions and joys at work between the old world of Europe and the new world of Australia.
Peter Papathanasiou is the son of migrants and the grandson of refugees. His parents emigrated from Greece to Australia in 1956 but were unable to have children, a huge sorrow (and shame) for them amongst Australia's Greek community and their own family. Finally, in 1973, Peter's mother's brother and sister-in-law in Greece offered to have another baby and give it to her to bring up as her own in Australia. Peter was that baby, born in 1974 and given up by his biological parents so that a childless sister could become a mother.
Peter grew up an only child in Australia, and only discovered his true parentage in 1999, when his mother revealed the family secret to him. By then Peter's birth mother had died, but he found he had two older brothers still living in the small village in northern Greece his mother had emigrated from. This is where the story begins, with Peter's mother sitting him down to tell him about his birth and the sacrifice that lay behind it.
What follows is a wonderful, moving and compelling memoir as Peter traces his parents' journey to Australia, their struggle as migrants, and the very different world that they came from - a world where the bond of family was so strong a husband and wife are prepared to do something extraordinary for their sibling. Peter's own career as a geneticist is a fascinating backdrop to his investigations into his own family.
About the Author
Peter Papathanasiou has been an internationally recognised research geneticist, working in the US, UK and Australia. His passion, however, is writing, and he's completed several professional development programs in Australia (Varuna) and the US (The New School), as well as earning a Master of Arts in Creative Writing at the University of London.
Industry Reviews
'A unique migrant journey: Peter Papathanasiou has written a beautiful memoir on family and identity.' George Megalogenis, award-winning author of The Australian Moment
'Absorbing and flawlessly written, telling an ultimately uplifting story about heredity, family and home.' Alison Moore, author of the Man Booker Prize shortlisted The Lighthouse
'A beautifully written and incredibly moving book. The humanity, love, loss, and the compelling search for identity shine out from the pages. I loved it.' Kate Hamer, award-winning author of The Girl in the Red Coat
'An engrossing account of two lives and how choices made years previously can ricochet down through the generations. This captivating memoir considers what it means to be a parent in the widest sense.' Claire Fuller, award-winning author of Our Endless Numbered Days
'Reveal a secret too soon and its meaning is lost on the listener; reveal it too late and all that has been carefully built upon it can fall in an instant . . . a richly moving and elegant memoir that tracks between the open spaces of Australia and a small town enclosed by mountains in northern Greece, Pete Papathanasiou writes with powerful verve of the explosive secret concealed at the centre of his life until he's already in his mid-twenties. Its sudden and unsettling disclosure forces him to reconsider everything he thought he knew about himself, his history and his heritage. What follows is a beautiful and cathartic story of love and loss, deftly charting the upheavals of the migrant experience and the raw struggles and redemptive emotional depths of a family scattered between two continents. The real revelation of his writing isn't the unveiling of the secret, though, but rather his ability to journey with unflinching honesty through a world that is both seemingly the same and yet utterly changed for him. In this poignant and illuminating search for understanding, he discovers the deepest and most resolute of ties that bind human lives, and has created a book equal in grace to the astonishing act of kindness he uncovers at the very heart of his family.' Julian Hoffman, award-winning author of The Small Heart of Things
