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Helena: An Odyssey
Helena: an Odyssey is an absorbing saga of myth and obsession, of a family haunted by their illustrious Byzantine past and a compulsion to redeem it. Bittersweet love stories are set against wars and forced population exchanges, ethnic confusion, and immigrant struggles. Woven throughout lies the power and symbolism of hair.
Helena’s daughter Georgia, narrating the tale, begins in 1908 when her great grandparent, the Greek Yiannis Kouvalis, and two sons set out on an epic journey from a poor Turkish village to glittering Smyrna on the Aegean Coast. Eventually succeeding as prosperous merchants, the sons marry and have children.
But the Young Turks are rising, and the ensuing Greco-Turkish wars culminate in the fiery destruction of Smyrna. Ethnic cleansing follows. Surviving remnants of the Kouvalis family are reduced once more to poverty and forced into what, to them, is an alien Greece.
The burden of redemption passes down the generations and falls, finally, on the unlikely Helena who longs only to create beautiful hair and through it, achieve international fame. But she is distracted by her intense love for local boy Stephan. Thwarted in her attempts to follow him when he leaves for the coal mines of Australia, she travels instead to her sister in Toronto. It is here where her real heartaches begin.
Helena’s daughter Georgia, narrating the tale, begins in 1908 when her great grandparent, the Greek Yiannis Kouvalis, and two sons set out on an epic journey from a poor Turkish village to glittering Smyrna on the Aegean Coast. Eventually succeeding as prosperous merchants, the sons marry and have children.
But the Young Turks are rising, and the ensuing Greco-Turkish wars culminate in the fiery destruction of Smyrna. Ethnic cleansing follows. Surviving remnants of the Kouvalis family are reduced once more to poverty and forced into what, to them, is an alien Greece.
The burden of redemption passes down the generations and falls, finally, on the unlikely Helena who longs only to create beautiful hair and through it, achieve international fame. But she is distracted by her intense love for local boy Stephan. Thwarted in her attempts to follow him when he leaves for the coal mines of Australia, she travels instead to her sister in Toronto. It is here where her real heartaches begin.
324 pages, Kindle Edition
First published October 23, 2014
3 people are currently reading
7 people want to read
About the author
Carolyn Taylor-Watts
3 books4 followersAs in my epic novel, Helena: An Odyssey, my life too resembles a saga. It had its origins in remote, rural New Zealand where I, as a farmer’s daughter, became a registered nurse, married and had children.
I moved with my first husband to Canada. In Toronto I worked for many years as a registered nurse while writing articles and short stories. I married a second time. After an accumulation of years, I made a third marriage and a decision to dedicate my life to writing.
My dream was to write a family saga, a generational tale with a historical backdrop and emotional heft. The material that came immediately to mind was how and why in the 1850’s my forebears left England and the Isle of Man – or fled – arriving in the Antipodes to prosper, survive, or destruct.
And so I began assembling material. About that time I met search and rescue workers in the Canadian Coast Guard, Navy SEALS and Search and Rescue Technicians. They inspired me to write their stories and so my journey began – not with a family saga - but with true stories of heroism, rescue and survival published by Nimbus Publishing and Dundurn Press. A moving and joyous ride it was!
I returned to my original plan to bring my ancestors to life. But quite soon I realized that I already knew this story. It was then I heard Tom Wolfe speak. “It’s been said that you should write about what you know,” he said, “but unless you can write it in a particular and unique way, get to know something else.”
Enter my Greek hair dresser and the tale of her family’s tragic past in Ottoman Turkey and Greece. Learning about Greco-Turkish history became my all-consuming passion. I spent time with Greek people [in Toronto], spent endless days, weeks, months doing research, then travelled with my husband throughout Greece and Turkey.
Who were the ancient peoples who raced across the Anatolian Plateau over thousands of years? I wanted to know.
How did they live? What do today’s populations of Greeks and Turks have in common with them: Hittites. Assyrians. Lydians? If you are a Greek living in Anatolia as your ancestors have done from the beginning of time but you live among Turks, adopt many of their customs, even speak their language, are you a Greek or a Turk? Do you care?
Perhaps not much, until you are forced to. These questions intrigued me. Soon, passionately I wanted to know. As I read, this history took on magical, even mystical proportions.
I moved with my first husband to Canada. In Toronto I worked for many years as a registered nurse while writing articles and short stories. I married a second time. After an accumulation of years, I made a third marriage and a decision to dedicate my life to writing.
My dream was to write a family saga, a generational tale with a historical backdrop and emotional heft. The material that came immediately to mind was how and why in the 1850’s my forebears left England and the Isle of Man – or fled – arriving in the Antipodes to prosper, survive, or destruct.
And so I began assembling material. About that time I met search and rescue workers in the Canadian Coast Guard, Navy SEALS and Search and Rescue Technicians. They inspired me to write their stories and so my journey began – not with a family saga - but with true stories of heroism, rescue and survival published by Nimbus Publishing and Dundurn Press. A moving and joyous ride it was!
I returned to my original plan to bring my ancestors to life. But quite soon I realized that I already knew this story. It was then I heard Tom Wolfe speak. “It’s been said that you should write about what you know,” he said, “but unless you can write it in a particular and unique way, get to know something else.”
Enter my Greek hair dresser and the tale of her family’s tragic past in Ottoman Turkey and Greece. Learning about Greco-Turkish history became my all-consuming passion. I spent time with Greek people [in Toronto], spent endless days, weeks, months doing research, then travelled with my husband throughout Greece and Turkey.
Who were the ancient peoples who raced across the Anatolian Plateau over thousands of years? I wanted to know.
How did they live? What do today’s populations of Greeks and Turks have in common with them: Hittites. Assyrians. Lydians? If you are a Greek living in Anatolia as your ancestors have done from the beginning of time but you live among Turks, adopt many of their customs, even speak their language, are you a Greek or a Turk? Do you care?
Perhaps not much, until you are forced to. These questions intrigued me. Soon, passionately I wanted to know. As I read, this history took on magical, even mystical proportions.
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Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews
March 27, 2015
I’m left wondering how the author is adjusting to her normal everyday life after writing this book. Her characters, especially Georgie and Helena, must have become so vivid, so much part of the fibre of her being while she was writing her novel. That’s the only way I have of trying to convey the effect her characters had on me, the reader.
Not only the characters, but also the various settings in which they played their parts affected me. I could feel the heat of the desert, taste the dust and breezes of Smyrna and smell the confines of the Toronto hair salon.
It is a historical novel with a brave, broad and epic sweep across centuries and events, human strivings and triumphs, disillusion and disappointments, marriages, births, old age and death; and one historical apocalyptic disaster, carefully researched and vividly depicted.
A further strand, that of identity following upheavals and forced migrations, has also been assiduously researched and sympathetically explored, and is as relevant today as it ever has been. Sadly, it seems it will be a continuing source of anguish to humankind, and this novel, it seems to me, is a valuable exploration of the effects on its victims of large-scale uprooting and forced migration.
Not only the characters, but also the various settings in which they played their parts affected me. I could feel the heat of the desert, taste the dust and breezes of Smyrna and smell the confines of the Toronto hair salon.
It is a historical novel with a brave, broad and epic sweep across centuries and events, human strivings and triumphs, disillusion and disappointments, marriages, births, old age and death; and one historical apocalyptic disaster, carefully researched and vividly depicted.
A further strand, that of identity following upheavals and forced migrations, has also been assiduously researched and sympathetically explored, and is as relevant today as it ever has been. Sadly, it seems it will be a continuing source of anguish to humankind, and this novel, it seems to me, is a valuable exploration of the effects on its victims of large-scale uprooting and forced migration.
August 13, 2018
I would have liked to know what happened to Adam, the children and the family that were left behind in Smyrna.
January 17, 2015
I enjoyed this book tremendously and couldn't put it down. I don't usually read historical fiction, only mysteries for the most part, but this one's back cover suggested a mystery, so I thought I'd give it a try. Quickly I became hooked on the mystery of "Helena:" What was the awful event that brought her home from Greece that last time in such a terrible state? What was going to happen to her? - or or should I say - what was she going to do to herself? I felt mystery hanging in the air in the family's dysfunctional home; felt sorry for daughter Georgia who set herself to find out - also to find herself.
While only one - maybe two - of the male characters were nice, I felt they were a largely a product of their time and place, patriarch Yiannis in particular. And how loyal their women were to them!
I would have wished for a map of Turkey to show the treks taken, but the settings were beautifully drawn. I felt I was actually there in streets of Smyrna as it was in the early years of the 20th century, and particularly the little refugee street in Patras in the Peloponnese.
This book is a really good read and I want more: I want to know to know what happens next - to Helena, and to her daughter Georgia.
While only one - maybe two - of the male characters were nice, I felt they were a largely a product of their time and place, patriarch Yiannis in particular. And how loyal their women were to them!
I would have wished for a map of Turkey to show the treks taken, but the settings were beautifully drawn. I felt I was actually there in streets of Smyrna as it was in the early years of the 20th century, and particularly the little refugee street in Patras in the Peloponnese.
This book is a really good read and I want more: I want to know to know what happens next - to Helena, and to her daughter Georgia.
July 10, 2015
A very compelling read!!
History came alive for me as I followed these beautiful, flawed, and ultimately credible characters through their harrowing journeys. The scope of the story is vast, but the people are both original and familiar.
I’ve read many books that alternate between long past and more current narratives. Usually I find myself favoring one period over the other and thinking, “I hope it gets back to the historical (or the modern) story soon,” and I read more quickly through the parts I’m less inclined to enjoy. Not so with this book. My interest in Toronto in the 90’s – which I might be inclined to prefer, since it’s my hometown – never outweighed my fascination with the World War I saga of Helena’s grandparents. Again, it all comes down to the characters. Some were more lovable than others. I lost patience with Helena at times for the choices she made. I felt genuine anger at several of the men – and some of the women, too. And at the end, I was worried about the future of Helena’s daughter Georgia, the young writer who gave us this story.
What more can you ask of a novel?
History came alive for me as I followed these beautiful, flawed, and ultimately credible characters through their harrowing journeys. The scope of the story is vast, but the people are both original and familiar.
I’ve read many books that alternate between long past and more current narratives. Usually I find myself favoring one period over the other and thinking, “I hope it gets back to the historical (or the modern) story soon,” and I read more quickly through the parts I’m less inclined to enjoy. Not so with this book. My interest in Toronto in the 90’s – which I might be inclined to prefer, since it’s my hometown – never outweighed my fascination with the World War I saga of Helena’s grandparents. Again, it all comes down to the characters. Some were more lovable than others. I lost patience with Helena at times for the choices she made. I felt genuine anger at several of the men – and some of the women, too. And at the end, I was worried about the future of Helena’s daughter Georgia, the young writer who gave us this story.
What more can you ask of a novel?
December 7, 2014
A saga for those interested in history, generations of a Greek family descended from Hellenistic Greeks are forced out of Turkey and into Greece - each is cursed with having to resurrect a supposedly glorious past, and the burden of family redemption eventually falls on a hair dresser in Toronto.
This is a beautifully written epic story that will grab you from the first page. Finely drawn characters and a large, sweeping storyline will pull you into a touching story of emotional heft and substance.
This is a beautifully written epic story that will grab you from the first page. Finely drawn characters and a large, sweeping storyline will pull you into a touching story of emotional heft and substance.
January 24, 2015
I became immediately absorbed in this very imaginative and partly historically-based family saga that extends over four generations. The author's highly creative writing style evokes a range of intense emotions and vivid images that immediately drew me into the personalities and tumultuous lives of the characters. The settings are so well described that I felt I was actually back in time sensing the emotionally-charged and changing atmospheres as I walked the streets of Smyrna and Patras and wandered through a village in Anatolia.
February 1, 2015
I enjoyed this romantic historical novel from beginning to end. Travelling from present day Toronto back in time to follow the journey of one family describes places I would love to see. Fascinating culture and history of the Greeks and the Turks with vibrant strong characters you love and hate.
Great!
Great!
Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews