What do you think?
Rate this book
Aphrodite's Breath
What happens when you take your 85-year-old mother to live with you on a Greek island? A strikingly original, funny, and forensic examination of love and finding home from the author of From Where I Fell .
In life, as in myth, women are the ones who are supposed to stay home like Penelope, weaving at their looms, rather than leaving home like Odysseus. Meet eighty-five-year-old Barbara and her sixty-two-year-old writer-daughter Susan, who asked her mother-on a whim-if she wanted to accompany her to live on the Greek island of Kythera. What follows is a moving unravelling of the mother-daughter relationship told in irresistible prose.
Aphrodite's Breath is a strikingly original, funny and forensic examination of love and finding home, amid the stories of the people, olives and wonders of the birthplace of Aphrodite.
Susan Johnson's work has been longlisted for the Miles Franklin Literary Award, the Dublin IMPAC Literary Award and shortlisted for the Queensland Premier's Prize, the Voss Literary Prize, the Christina Stead Award, the National Biography Award and the Commonwealth Writers' Prize, among others.
In life, as in myth, women are the ones who are supposed to stay home like Penelope, weaving at their looms, rather than leaving home like Odysseus. Meet eighty-five-year-old Barbara and her sixty-two-year-old writer-daughter Susan, who asked her mother-on a whim-if she wanted to accompany her to live on the Greek island of Kythera. What follows is a moving unravelling of the mother-daughter relationship told in irresistible prose.
Aphrodite's Breath is a strikingly original, funny and forensic examination of love and finding home, amid the stories of the people, olives and wonders of the birthplace of Aphrodite.
Susan Johnson's work has been longlisted for the Miles Franklin Literary Award, the Dublin IMPAC Literary Award and shortlisted for the Queensland Premier's Prize, the Voss Literary Prize, the Christina Stead Award, the National Biography Award and the Commonwealth Writers' Prize, among others.
Kindle Edition
First published April 4, 2023
40 people are currently reading
413 people want to read
About the author
Susan Johnson
15 books63 followersSusan Johnson was shortlisted for the 1991 Victorian Premier's Literary Award for her novel Flying Lessons, shortlisted for the 1994 National Book Council's Banjo Award for the novel A Big Life and shortlisted for the National Biography Award 2000 for her memoir A Better Woman. Her other books include Hungry Ghosts, Messages from Chaos, Women Love Sex (editor and contributor) and Life in Seven Mistakes. The Broken Book was shortlisted for the 2005 Nita B Kibble Award; the Best Fiction Book section of the Queensland Premier's Literary Award; the Westfield/Waverley Library Literary Award, and the Australian Literary Society Gold Medal Award for an Outstanding Australian Literary Work. Her last novel, My Hundred Lovers, was published in 2012 to critical acclaim.
Librarian Note: There is more than one author in the Goodreads database with this name. This author is entered with 2 spaces.
Librarian Note: There is more than one author in the Goodreads database with this name. This author is entered with 2 spaces.
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 30 of 50 reviews
June 15, 2023
Most southern of the Ionian Islands, birthplace of Aphrodite, Kythera was ruled by the Romans, Turks, French, British, attacked by the pirate Barbarossa and visited by writer Charles Baudelaire. It’s home to one of the few European Black Madonnas, the archaeological treasure Antikythera Mechanism, and the ‘endless blue of sea and sky, everything sparkling lit by the sun and the many gifts a turning earth provides’. Writer Susan Johnson was entranced by this special and spectacular island in her twenties, and in her 60’s decides to return to live for a year, with her bossy, spitfire of a widowed 85 year old mother, Barbara. She is contracted to finalise a novel and to write a memoir of their trip.
Abandoning life’s trappings in Brisbane proves to be a bureaucratic nightmare, the hurdles of approvals, permits, visas and travel insurance for the elderly are overcome only to be encountered by further difficulties in Greece. Their home, the Almond Tree House, has no sewerage, intermittent electricity and internet supply, is prone to earthquakes, and freezing cold. Barbara is miserable, disinclined to join Susan in walking groups, dances, Easter services, olive harvesting or learning the language. Will their adventure be ‘Mamma Mia! or Apocalypse Now’?
Silver haired, French rolled Barbara is a beauty, defying her age. She is the feminine, while Susan is the feminist. Their relationship tensions take on mythological proportions, exacerbated by living without words in a new land .
At times a strikingly beautiful travelogue, at it’s heart a searingly emotive portrait of the mother-daughter dynamic. I was chuckling and teary only a couple of pages into the prologue. Like the old stone houses of Kythera, I was haunted long after turning the final page.
Abandoning life’s trappings in Brisbane proves to be a bureaucratic nightmare, the hurdles of approvals, permits, visas and travel insurance for the elderly are overcome only to be encountered by further difficulties in Greece. Their home, the Almond Tree House, has no sewerage, intermittent electricity and internet supply, is prone to earthquakes, and freezing cold. Barbara is miserable, disinclined to join Susan in walking groups, dances, Easter services, olive harvesting or learning the language. Will their adventure be ‘Mamma Mia! or Apocalypse Now’?
Silver haired, French rolled Barbara is a beauty, defying her age. She is the feminine, while Susan is the feminist. Their relationship tensions take on mythological proportions, exacerbated by living without words in a new land .
At times a strikingly beautiful travelogue, at it’s heart a searingly emotive portrait of the mother-daughter dynamic. I was chuckling and teary only a couple of pages into the prologue. Like the old stone houses of Kythera, I was haunted long after turning the final page.
June 19, 2023
Review of paperback edition.
Sixty two year old author, Susan Johnson invites her eighty five year old mother to come with her to live on the Greek Island of Kythera. Susan has fond memories of the island from her younger days. She expects her mother to love it as she did. Is it the idyll she remembers from back then? It’s a big change in lifestyle and climate to Brisbane, Australia. Things don’t quite go to plan and Susan is left wondering about the wisdom of committing to writing about the experience and the mother/daughter relationship.
This book is the result. It is written, with a stunning setting, and filled with snippets of mythology and history as well as glimpses into the author’s life, her writing and relationships, in particular with her mother . Not to mention plenty about Greek culture and food. It made me wish we had a Greek restaurant nearby.
I don’t read a lot of memoirs, but I enjoyed this one. Susan Johnson’s relationship with her mother Barbara was very different to mine, though sadly I never got to know my mum as an elderly woman as death called for her way too soon. But it is always interesting to see how other familial relationships work.
From its stunning cover this is a book to savour. Thanks to Allen & Unwin for my copy to read and review.
Sixty two year old author, Susan Johnson invites her eighty five year old mother to come with her to live on the Greek Island of Kythera. Susan has fond memories of the island from her younger days. She expects her mother to love it as she did. Is it the idyll she remembers from back then? It’s a big change in lifestyle and climate to Brisbane, Australia. Things don’t quite go to plan and Susan is left wondering about the wisdom of committing to writing about the experience and the mother/daughter relationship.
This book is the result. It is written, with a stunning setting, and filled with snippets of mythology and history as well as glimpses into the author’s life, her writing and relationships, in particular with her mother . Not to mention plenty about Greek culture and food. It made me wish we had a Greek restaurant nearby.
I don’t read a lot of memoirs, but I enjoyed this one. Susan Johnson’s relationship with her mother Barbara was very different to mine, though sadly I never got to know my mum as an elderly woman as death called for her way too soon. But it is always interesting to see how other familial relationships work.
From its stunning cover this is a book to savour. Thanks to Allen & Unwin for my copy to read and review.
June 17, 2023
3.5★s
“When I phoned the local Greek bank, a hesitant English speaker asked me to speak more slowly please. It was exactly what I asked when anyone spoke to me in Greek: I needed each word to stand alone, shipwrecked in a little pool of air, adrift from the rest of the fleet.”
Aphrodite’s Breath is a memoir by Australian author, Susan Johnson. In 2019, Susan Johnson decides to up sticks, take her elderly mother and go to Greece, to live on the island of Kythera. There are several precipitating factors: she’s not long divorced; her father and maternal grandmother have both recently died, which brings her mother, Barbara to Brisbane; and her sons go to live with their father in London. When she quits her job at The Courier Mail, what’s to keep her here?
Kythera, in the Ionian Islands of Greece, is a place she has lived in her youth, it holds appeal. But the preparations and the red tape, the hoops to be jumped through before they even get there, are numerous.
Eventually, they arrive at their new address: Almond Tree House, Aroniadika, Kythera, Greece 80200. It’s not quite the house they were promised, not the idyll they’d been expecting, and eighty-five-year-old Barbara is very dissatisfied. The weather is cold, the house is draughty, there are power failures, the internet connection is sporadic, and the car they were promised has been delayed. They’re paying too much for it all.
Having none of the language, barely two words of Greek to rub together, can be isolating. But with broken Greek and charades, they sort of manage. Susan goes on many walks, explores abandoned houses on the island and, in addition to her daily Greek language lessons, researches the life of a woman who lived on Kythera, Rose Kasimati, the mother of Lefcadio Hearn.
On leaving Barbara alone one night “How brave she was, how proud and resolute, yet how vulnerable! She was infuriating, too, but – unlike me – she was never anything less than her authentic, spitfire self.”
As summer comes on, they have overseas visitors, friends and family, and play musical beds to accommodate everyone. In May, they move to a house that seems to be much better, in Manitochori. The improved weather, accommodation and their landlady all have a positive effect on moods: Barbara is much happier. There are lots of summer dances. Somehow, Susan temporarily acquires a French/Greek beau.
Together, Susan and Barbara endure storms, earthquakes, ticks and more, and Susan, fascinated by everything Greek and Kytherian, comes to realise that, in so many things, what they relish is remarkably dissimilar: “It sometimes seemed to me that the ways in which Mum and I experienced the world were entirely different.”
At the end of summer, visitors depart, and Susan enthusiastically takes part in the olive harvest while Barbara stays in the house. Months together in close quarters are not all smooth sailing: Susan is quite candid about her feelings and doesn’t hesitate to include scenarios that don’t paint her in the best light. It is agreed that Barbara will go home early, with her son after his visit, a visit that demonstrates to them both that “Every child has a different mother and father, even siblings who share the same parents.”
Even after more than a year on Kythera, Susan’s Greek is still very basic: “…so many freestanding words seemed useless to me, so many pearls clattering to the floor, unstrung, a broken necklace. “’ ‘Dog bite hand’ might get me understood, but whose hand, which dog, and what came next? Surely it was the string that mattered, holding all the pearls together.”
While it drags a bit once Barbara departs the scene, Johnson does give the reader some wonderful prose: “France represents a more sober cultivation of existence, from gardens to language to food. France’s beauty is soft, manicured and formal; Greece is loud-mouthed, untrammelled, too big to be tamed. Greece is still home to tragedy and joy, to gods and humans seeking ecstasy, its beauty merciless, its feet unshod.” Barbara Johnson’s epilogue is a lovely touch to close this interesting memoir.
This unbiased review is from a copy provided by Allen & Unwin.
“When I phoned the local Greek bank, a hesitant English speaker asked me to speak more slowly please. It was exactly what I asked when anyone spoke to me in Greek: I needed each word to stand alone, shipwrecked in a little pool of air, adrift from the rest of the fleet.”
Aphrodite’s Breath is a memoir by Australian author, Susan Johnson. In 2019, Susan Johnson decides to up sticks, take her elderly mother and go to Greece, to live on the island of Kythera. There are several precipitating factors: she’s not long divorced; her father and maternal grandmother have both recently died, which brings her mother, Barbara to Brisbane; and her sons go to live with their father in London. When she quits her job at The Courier Mail, what’s to keep her here?
Kythera, in the Ionian Islands of Greece, is a place she has lived in her youth, it holds appeal. But the preparations and the red tape, the hoops to be jumped through before they even get there, are numerous.
Eventually, they arrive at their new address: Almond Tree House, Aroniadika, Kythera, Greece 80200. It’s not quite the house they were promised, not the idyll they’d been expecting, and eighty-five-year-old Barbara is very dissatisfied. The weather is cold, the house is draughty, there are power failures, the internet connection is sporadic, and the car they were promised has been delayed. They’re paying too much for it all.
Having none of the language, barely two words of Greek to rub together, can be isolating. But with broken Greek and charades, they sort of manage. Susan goes on many walks, explores abandoned houses on the island and, in addition to her daily Greek language lessons, researches the life of a woman who lived on Kythera, Rose Kasimati, the mother of Lefcadio Hearn.
On leaving Barbara alone one night “How brave she was, how proud and resolute, yet how vulnerable! She was infuriating, too, but – unlike me – she was never anything less than her authentic, spitfire self.”
As summer comes on, they have overseas visitors, friends and family, and play musical beds to accommodate everyone. In May, they move to a house that seems to be much better, in Manitochori. The improved weather, accommodation and their landlady all have a positive effect on moods: Barbara is much happier. There are lots of summer dances. Somehow, Susan temporarily acquires a French/Greek beau.
Together, Susan and Barbara endure storms, earthquakes, ticks and more, and Susan, fascinated by everything Greek and Kytherian, comes to realise that, in so many things, what they relish is remarkably dissimilar: “It sometimes seemed to me that the ways in which Mum and I experienced the world were entirely different.”
At the end of summer, visitors depart, and Susan enthusiastically takes part in the olive harvest while Barbara stays in the house. Months together in close quarters are not all smooth sailing: Susan is quite candid about her feelings and doesn’t hesitate to include scenarios that don’t paint her in the best light. It is agreed that Barbara will go home early, with her son after his visit, a visit that demonstrates to them both that “Every child has a different mother and father, even siblings who share the same parents.”
Even after more than a year on Kythera, Susan’s Greek is still very basic: “…so many freestanding words seemed useless to me, so many pearls clattering to the floor, unstrung, a broken necklace. “’ ‘Dog bite hand’ might get me understood, but whose hand, which dog, and what came next? Surely it was the string that mattered, holding all the pearls together.”
While it drags a bit once Barbara departs the scene, Johnson does give the reader some wonderful prose: “France represents a more sober cultivation of existence, from gardens to language to food. France’s beauty is soft, manicured and formal; Greece is loud-mouthed, untrammelled, too big to be tamed. Greece is still home to tragedy and joy, to gods and humans seeking ecstasy, its beauty merciless, its feet unshod.” Barbara Johnson’s epilogue is a lovely touch to close this interesting memoir.
This unbiased review is from a copy provided by Allen & Unwin.
June 27, 2025
Whew... this one has been a bit of a marathon!
Aphrodite's Breath has been on my TBR for a long time - in fact, two years next week, according to Goodreads. I was initially attracted to the book by its premise of author Susan Johnson, an adult woman, and her octogenarian mother, Barbara travelling to Greece to live for a year on the island of Kythera. This piqued my interest as I too had spent a period of time, albeit as a younger adult just finished university, in Greece with my own late mother for an extended trip over 25 years ago. I was intrigued and somewhat nostalgic for the exploration of the dynamic between the duo, as well as the armchair travel component.
I first started reading Aphrodite's Breath back in January 2025, but found it difficult to become engrossed in the story and became distracted by other books on my TBR pile. I re-started the book from the beginning in April, with the intention of persevering until the end. It's still taken me almost two months to complete the 368 page book...
Susan and Barbara Johnson arrive on the Greek island of Kythera in February, at the tail end of one of the bitterest winters the island has experienced in living memory. Susan had spent an idyllic summer with a friend's family on the island in her youth, and had always dreamt of returning. Barbara, feeling at a loose end since the death of her husband, Susan's father, accepts the invitation to join Susan on the adventure and writer Susan is commissioned by her publishers to write a memoir based on their experiences.
The duo immediately experience difficulties: with the language barrier, with obtaining a long-promised vehicle with which to explore the hilly island, and with the amenities of their overpriced rental accommodation. Tempers predictably become frayed and Barbara is clearly homesick for the familiarity and climate of Queensland. Susan attempts to learn the language and make connections with locals, both Greek and ex-pat, but is hampered by a combination of guilt and frustration over how unhappy her mother is with the situation.
Aphrodite's Breath has been on my TBR for a long time - in fact, two years next week, according to Goodreads. I was initially attracted to the book by its premise of author Susan Johnson, an adult woman, and her octogenarian mother, Barbara travelling to Greece to live for a year on the island of Kythera. This piqued my interest as I too had spent a period of time, albeit as a younger adult just finished university, in Greece with my own late mother for an extended trip over 25 years ago. I was intrigued and somewhat nostalgic for the exploration of the dynamic between the duo, as well as the armchair travel component.
I first started reading Aphrodite's Breath back in January 2025, but found it difficult to become engrossed in the story and became distracted by other books on my TBR pile. I re-started the book from the beginning in April, with the intention of persevering until the end. It's still taken me almost two months to complete the 368 page book...
Susan and Barbara Johnson arrive on the Greek island of Kythera in February, at the tail end of one of the bitterest winters the island has experienced in living memory. Susan had spent an idyllic summer with a friend's family on the island in her youth, and had always dreamt of returning. Barbara, feeling at a loose end since the death of her husband, Susan's father, accepts the invitation to join Susan on the adventure and writer Susan is commissioned by her publishers to write a memoir based on their experiences.
The duo immediately experience difficulties: with the language barrier, with obtaining a long-promised vehicle with which to explore the hilly island, and with the amenities of their overpriced rental accommodation. Tempers predictably become frayed and Barbara is clearly homesick for the familiarity and climate of Queensland. Susan attempts to learn the language and make connections with locals, both Greek and ex-pat, but is hampered by a combination of guilt and frustration over how unhappy her mother is with the situation.
"Not for the first time I wondered if our experience might have been different if we'd gone to another island, or if we'd arrived on Kythera in the swoon of high summer. But the point of coming to Greece at all was to experience Kythera specifically, in all its moods, in its glories and failures - at least that was what I had been seeking - but clearly Mum had been seeking something else. I feared I had not been generous enough, or kind enough: I believed that somehow I had failed her. Whatever it was my mother wanted from me, I had not bestowed it." (p.246)Aside from the travel journal element, in which Johnson details the joys and challenges the two women experience on Kythera, she also explores intriguing themes such as parent-child bonds and dynamics as they evolve over a lifetime and the nature and limitations of memoir as a medium.
"If I knew anything it was that it is mostly our own selves who are the elephants in the room, which is why this memoir - any memoir - can only ever be an incomplete brush with the truth." (p.140)
"... I felt stranded between the past and the present, half-woman, half-girl. Everything was the same on the island as when I first saw it - the square of Potamos, the pristine bays, the majesty of its hills - and yet everything was different." (p.166)
"Every child has a different mother and father, even siblings who share the same parents." (p.230)
"I started to think migration could result in a sort of inherited trauma, as if all that leaving, the wrenching away, all that forgetting somehow settled in the blood of subsequent generations. It sometimes seemed that some people I met were cursed to wander like exiles longing for home, caught between one world and another, neither here nor there, cast into some liminal place, forever homeless." (p.230)
"I had looked into her indestructible long-handled mirror and never once found her face, but one day I looked and saw my own, and my mother's face inside it." (p.334)
"And when I am gone I want these words to record that I was a wanderer in many lands whose home was love." (p.334)
May 5, 2023
I have read a few fiction novels from Susan Johnson before and really enjoyed them but this is the first non-fiction I have read from her. It is a memoir detailing the time she and her mother spent time living on the Greek island of Kythera (which is about 100km from Crete). Susan was 62 and her mother 85 at the time they embarked on the journey, with quite a meagre budget. They were hoping to secure a rental for a year, the promise of steady year-long rent rather than just pricey summer rent hoping to sway a local landlord.
It sounds idyllic, doesn’t it? The idea of living on a small Greek island (I think it’s mentioned that Kythera is around 40km long) for a year, where it’s relatively cheap, compared to Australia. And in many ways, I think it was. But there were also downsides, including not being fluent in the local language, which leaves you vulnerable in dealings with locals and the reality of the year-round climate, which is definitely not as hospitable in the off season as it is in the summer. They arrive at what should be the tail end of winter but it rages on in the area where they rent a property, one that is definitely ill equipped for year round living and the sort of winds that that particular part of the island experiences. A lot of the properties on Kythera are either family summer homes or those specifically for being rented out in the summer season – they don’t have much in the way of effective heating. And Susan and her mother arrive at the end of what was a particularly savage winter that lasted longer than usual, which meant that their first few weeks (months?) were, especially for Susan’s mother, quite miserable.
Although the book isn’t specifically about this, in a way it does address the realities of being an older person with debt, who is financially starting again after a divorce. It can be much harder to reestablish yourself financially, especially at an older age and especially if you are a woman, who has often had time out of the paid workforce to have and rear children. And although her mother was seemingly quite comfortable financially, it was about having company after being widowed and losing her own mother in relatively short succession, having someone nearby in her growing older age. In this example, Susan does give up paid employment and take a redundancy to live in Greece (against advice of some), surviving off that and her advance from her publisher for two books, which turn out to be Where I Fell and this one. She does have options available to her that some others do not, in that as well as her “day job” of journalism, she also wrote, which earned her an added income. In Australia though, writing is something that few authors can do to support themselves on alone, and generally requires supplementation, be it in the form of other paid employment or a partner that is other employment to share expenses. Susan and her widowed mother go 50/50 on rent and bills living in Greece and it isn’t mentioned how she might’ve done this alone (or if she could have, which I suspect not). I appreciated the frank honesty as some people might be incredulous of how people could throw in jobs in Australia and go and live on an island in Greece and this does detail how it was done.
Mother-daughter relationships are complex for many. Like Susan, I’m the firstborn daughter and I have a younger brother to her two younger brothers and like Susan, I definitely notice a difference in parenting and expectations for me versus my brother. It was obvious to me as children and adolescents and it remains obvious to me now that we are adults. I do not live near my parents and my brother still does, which may account for some of the differences, but it was definitely something in the text that I could relate to.
I appreciated a lot of the finer detail in this – the language barriers, the struggle with what they received not being what was expected, the way things worked differently on the island. It wasn’t presented as this idealistic paradise, like one might think it would be and then Johnson was caught up in the beginning of the pandemic as well, which prevented her from returning to Greece from London at one stage and also delayed her return back to Australia, which was also complicated by the fact that everyone had to quarantine in a hotel upon being able to finally re-enter the country. This definitely went in some different directions to what I was expecting but that is what real life is like sometimes. There are a lot of emotional sections towards the end and I admire Susan Johnson for being able to write about such things with beauty and clarity.
I really enjoyed this. Susan Johnson is a wonderful writer, be it fiction or non-fiction and I definitely need to read more of her backlist.
It sounds idyllic, doesn’t it? The idea of living on a small Greek island (I think it’s mentioned that Kythera is around 40km long) for a year, where it’s relatively cheap, compared to Australia. And in many ways, I think it was. But there were also downsides, including not being fluent in the local language, which leaves you vulnerable in dealings with locals and the reality of the year-round climate, which is definitely not as hospitable in the off season as it is in the summer. They arrive at what should be the tail end of winter but it rages on in the area where they rent a property, one that is definitely ill equipped for year round living and the sort of winds that that particular part of the island experiences. A lot of the properties on Kythera are either family summer homes or those specifically for being rented out in the summer season – they don’t have much in the way of effective heating. And Susan and her mother arrive at the end of what was a particularly savage winter that lasted longer than usual, which meant that their first few weeks (months?) were, especially for Susan’s mother, quite miserable.
Although the book isn’t specifically about this, in a way it does address the realities of being an older person with debt, who is financially starting again after a divorce. It can be much harder to reestablish yourself financially, especially at an older age and especially if you are a woman, who has often had time out of the paid workforce to have and rear children. And although her mother was seemingly quite comfortable financially, it was about having company after being widowed and losing her own mother in relatively short succession, having someone nearby in her growing older age. In this example, Susan does give up paid employment and take a redundancy to live in Greece (against advice of some), surviving off that and her advance from her publisher for two books, which turn out to be Where I Fell and this one. She does have options available to her that some others do not, in that as well as her “day job” of journalism, she also wrote, which earned her an added income. In Australia though, writing is something that few authors can do to support themselves on alone, and generally requires supplementation, be it in the form of other paid employment or a partner that is other employment to share expenses. Susan and her widowed mother go 50/50 on rent and bills living in Greece and it isn’t mentioned how she might’ve done this alone (or if she could have, which I suspect not). I appreciated the frank honesty as some people might be incredulous of how people could throw in jobs in Australia and go and live on an island in Greece and this does detail how it was done.
Mother-daughter relationships are complex for many. Like Susan, I’m the firstborn daughter and I have a younger brother to her two younger brothers and like Susan, I definitely notice a difference in parenting and expectations for me versus my brother. It was obvious to me as children and adolescents and it remains obvious to me now that we are adults. I do not live near my parents and my brother still does, which may account for some of the differences, but it was definitely something in the text that I could relate to.
I appreciated a lot of the finer detail in this – the language barriers, the struggle with what they received not being what was expected, the way things worked differently on the island. It wasn’t presented as this idealistic paradise, like one might think it would be and then Johnson was caught up in the beginning of the pandemic as well, which prevented her from returning to Greece from London at one stage and also delayed her return back to Australia, which was also complicated by the fact that everyone had to quarantine in a hotel upon being able to finally re-enter the country. This definitely went in some different directions to what I was expecting but that is what real life is like sometimes. There are a lot of emotional sections towards the end and I admire Susan Johnson for being able to write about such things with beauty and clarity.
I really enjoyed this. Susan Johnson is a wonderful writer, be it fiction or non-fiction and I definitely need to read more of her backlist.
May 11, 2023
- thanks to @allenandunwin for my #gifted copy
I am utterly ashamed to admit that, after loving From Where I Fell, Susan's latest novel, I swore I would read her previous works... and I have not, until this very day. But life went by, and when I heard she had a new Memoir coming out, I stopped everything else I was reading to prioritise Aphrodite's Breath. And I'm delighted I did.
At 62, Susan takes her 85-year-old mother, Barbara, to live in Kythera, a small Greek island. It was supposed to be a loving, fun adventure for them both... but it was not. They embarked on a beautiful journey and lived in a heavenly place, but their experiences were far from what they expected.
To say that I loved Susan's journey is an understatement. As a migrant myself, I understand the need to escape to a different place, with a foreign language, in part wishing for a new life, in part hoping to reinvent oneself. Yet, despite the difference in age and circumstances, Susan's experience moved me deeply. Many of the challenges she and Barbara faced resonated too close to home. Because, leaving your home and your comfort entails way more than adapting to a new culture and learning a new language: it is about fighting the urge to go back when the desire to stay is as strong.
I also cherished Susan's depiction of her mother and their relationship. I had to take a minute quite a few times to process the fact that, no matter the age, mother-daughter relationships are complex to navigate. I celebrate Susan's vulnerability in sharing her experience and finding the courage to come up with words to express what sometimes only makes sense inside; sometimes, not even then.
I also applaud Susan's ability for descriptive writing. More often than not, I felt I was in Kythera myself. I felt Kythera's cold and its sun on my skin, I smelled the food, and I touched the flowers.
Overall, Aphrodite's Breath is a profound exploration of a daughter's relationship with her mother. Beautifully written, lyrical and heartwarming: it is an absolutely unmissable book.
I am utterly ashamed to admit that, after loving From Where I Fell, Susan's latest novel, I swore I would read her previous works... and I have not, until this very day. But life went by, and when I heard she had a new Memoir coming out, I stopped everything else I was reading to prioritise Aphrodite's Breath. And I'm delighted I did.
At 62, Susan takes her 85-year-old mother, Barbara, to live in Kythera, a small Greek island. It was supposed to be a loving, fun adventure for them both... but it was not. They embarked on a beautiful journey and lived in a heavenly place, but their experiences were far from what they expected.
To say that I loved Susan's journey is an understatement. As a migrant myself, I understand the need to escape to a different place, with a foreign language, in part wishing for a new life, in part hoping to reinvent oneself. Yet, despite the difference in age and circumstances, Susan's experience moved me deeply. Many of the challenges she and Barbara faced resonated too close to home. Because, leaving your home and your comfort entails way more than adapting to a new culture and learning a new language: it is about fighting the urge to go back when the desire to stay is as strong.
I also cherished Susan's depiction of her mother and their relationship. I had to take a minute quite a few times to process the fact that, no matter the age, mother-daughter relationships are complex to navigate. I celebrate Susan's vulnerability in sharing her experience and finding the courage to come up with words to express what sometimes only makes sense inside; sometimes, not even then.
I also applaud Susan's ability for descriptive writing. More often than not, I felt I was in Kythera myself. I felt Kythera's cold and its sun on my skin, I smelled the food, and I touched the flowers.
Overall, Aphrodite's Breath is a profound exploration of a daughter's relationship with her mother. Beautifully written, lyrical and heartwarming: it is an absolutely unmissable book.
May 9, 2023
This book is a love letter to wild and beautiful Greece, and like all good travel memoirs it takes you through the dream of living in a place that intrigues you without actually having to go through with it – I loved reading about Kythera and what happens on a Greek island when it's not summertime.
It's a book about mothers and adult children. It's a book about writing as a career - signing a contract and promising to hand over a book, and then finding that the book you thought you'd write can no longer be written, and how the author works through that painful scenario. It's a book about exile and belonging, leaving home and longing to return. It moved me and I won't forget it in a hurry.
It's a book about mothers and adult children. It's a book about writing as a career - signing a contract and promising to hand over a book, and then finding that the book you thought you'd write can no longer be written, and how the author works through that painful scenario. It's a book about exile and belonging, leaving home and longing to return. It moved me and I won't forget it in a hurry.
May 22, 2023
A new social phenomenon has developed these last ten years or so and that is women (generally) in their fifties and sixties out and about on a regular basis with their very elderly parents, mostly mothers. I am one of these. I’m in my sixties and my mother is 92. Twenty or so years ago not many people lived into their 90s. Now it is more common. So when Susan Johnson decides to live in Greece on the fabled island of Kythera she fell in love with in the 1970s, her mother must, by necessity, come with her. She explains:
“But even with a redundancy package and the responsibilities of hands-on mothering soon to fly from my shoulders, other obligations remained. In that bright dream of making fresh footsteps in an untrod direction, an aged mother isn’t usually a resident of the red-spotted sack swinging from the stick on your shoulder. I couldn’t leave my mother, I couldn’t run away, I just couldn’t. It’s hardly news that love is a prison: in a reckless moment I asked Mum if she might consider coming with me to live in Greece. “Why not?” she replied in a blink.“
With a contract to write this book and with editing work that must be done on another, Susan Johnson and her mother set off in 2019, aged respectively 62 and 85. Writing a memoir presents its own problems as Johnson points out early on:
“Today, it’s considered suspicious - even furtive - to withhold anything from readers, especially in memoirs which purport to present a version of the truth. But I have, because I am a private person - even an obsessively private one - and because writing that seeks to reflect even a portion of the totality of experience can only be a narrative punctuated by spaces......We set off together, foolish and fearless: here is a version of what happened.”
What happened of course is so many things in this fascinating and challenging memoir. Firstly, it turns out to be freezing cold in Greece when they arrive, particularly in the house they have rented at Aroniadika. Susan’s mother Barbara is not happy and becomes quite intractable, making life difficult for Johnson. Secondly there is the worry about how to write the memoir, as mentioned above. Mother and daughter clash and Johnson does a lot of soul searching.
“All at once I saw the vanity of my project, as if I had imagined myself a glamorous Margaret Mead inspecting a remote tribe. What else could I ever be within this intricate and ancient society but a blow-in sending a postcard saying, The weather is variable, wish you were here?”
Along the way Johnson writes about the island itself, the society that saw so many people leave for other shores; the customs, the completely different way of life on Kythera and also does some research on a famous exile - Rosa Kasimati the mother of Lafcadio Hearn, the Greek-Japanese writer and translator.
Even though spring is on its way, Barbara decides she wants to live somewhere else. Things become very strained between the pair and Johnson writes:
“I was ready to give away every cent I had to never write another book again. I was over my life, I was over my mother: suddenly I was a character in some Greek myth I had forgotten, locked in a fight to the death, a character who chose to burn in a pit of fire rather than let her mother win.”
Finally, a second house is found and the weather becomes milder Johnson’s descriptions are glorious. The island becomes the Kythera she remembers:
“Now the earth tilted on its axis. Now Kythera woke up, fields of red poppies bright against the ground, wild yellow crocuses spilling like sunshine down hills. Everything trapped was suddenly free, stretching its limbs, breathing out. What had been asleep was now wide-eyed; trees unfurling, strung with tender new leaves. The natural world lit up: the sky, the wild barren mountains, there was nowhere your eyes turned which wasn’t filled with colour and brightness.”
Johnson touches on so many things: the history of the island, the relationship with her mother, the new friendships she makes and the brief moments of happiness. Towards the end when tragedy strikes twice I was in tears. I don’t know any other writer that gets right down to the heart of things and Susan, you haven’t failed as a writer. You have found your readership with me and so many others. Please keep writing. 5 and half stars and highly recommended.
“But even with a redundancy package and the responsibilities of hands-on mothering soon to fly from my shoulders, other obligations remained. In that bright dream of making fresh footsteps in an untrod direction, an aged mother isn’t usually a resident of the red-spotted sack swinging from the stick on your shoulder. I couldn’t leave my mother, I couldn’t run away, I just couldn’t. It’s hardly news that love is a prison: in a reckless moment I asked Mum if she might consider coming with me to live in Greece. “Why not?” she replied in a blink.“
With a contract to write this book and with editing work that must be done on another, Susan Johnson and her mother set off in 2019, aged respectively 62 and 85. Writing a memoir presents its own problems as Johnson points out early on:
“Today, it’s considered suspicious - even furtive - to withhold anything from readers, especially in memoirs which purport to present a version of the truth. But I have, because I am a private person - even an obsessively private one - and because writing that seeks to reflect even a portion of the totality of experience can only be a narrative punctuated by spaces......We set off together, foolish and fearless: here is a version of what happened.”
What happened of course is so many things in this fascinating and challenging memoir. Firstly, it turns out to be freezing cold in Greece when they arrive, particularly in the house they have rented at Aroniadika. Susan’s mother Barbara is not happy and becomes quite intractable, making life difficult for Johnson. Secondly there is the worry about how to write the memoir, as mentioned above. Mother and daughter clash and Johnson does a lot of soul searching.
“All at once I saw the vanity of my project, as if I had imagined myself a glamorous Margaret Mead inspecting a remote tribe. What else could I ever be within this intricate and ancient society but a blow-in sending a postcard saying, The weather is variable, wish you were here?”
Along the way Johnson writes about the island itself, the society that saw so many people leave for other shores; the customs, the completely different way of life on Kythera and also does some research on a famous exile - Rosa Kasimati the mother of Lafcadio Hearn, the Greek-Japanese writer and translator.
Even though spring is on its way, Barbara decides she wants to live somewhere else. Things become very strained between the pair and Johnson writes:
“I was ready to give away every cent I had to never write another book again. I was over my life, I was over my mother: suddenly I was a character in some Greek myth I had forgotten, locked in a fight to the death, a character who chose to burn in a pit of fire rather than let her mother win.”
Finally, a second house is found and the weather becomes milder Johnson’s descriptions are glorious. The island becomes the Kythera she remembers:
“Now the earth tilted on its axis. Now Kythera woke up, fields of red poppies bright against the ground, wild yellow crocuses spilling like sunshine down hills. Everything trapped was suddenly free, stretching its limbs, breathing out. What had been asleep was now wide-eyed; trees unfurling, strung with tender new leaves. The natural world lit up: the sky, the wild barren mountains, there was nowhere your eyes turned which wasn’t filled with colour and brightness.”
Johnson touches on so many things: the history of the island, the relationship with her mother, the new friendships she makes and the brief moments of happiness. Towards the end when tragedy strikes twice I was in tears. I don’t know any other writer that gets right down to the heart of things and Susan, you haven’t failed as a writer. You have found your readership with me and so many others. Please keep writing. 5 and half stars and highly recommended.
May 22, 2023
I was having time off from reading memoirs... but when Susan Johnson — one of my favourite authors — writes one, well that's different and I can break my own rules as much as I please.
I had read and admired The Broken Book (2005, see Kim's review at Reading Matters) when it was longlisted for the Miles Franklin, the IMPAC Dublin Award and the Commonwealth Writers' Prize, shortlisted for the Commonwealth Writers’ Prize, the Queensland Premier’s Prize for fiction, the Nita B Kibble Award, the Association for the Study of Australian Literature (ALS) Gold Medal Award and the CAL Waverley Library Award for Literature... 
but I fell in love with Susan Johnson's writing with Life in Seven Mistakes (2008, see my review). That sly black comedy was so brave and honest and true, I almost wept except when I was laughing. I've read everything she's ever published since, and I think I've got her entire backlist on the TBR but Life in Seven Mistakes remains my favourite.
Susan is one of those rare writers who can mine aspects of her family life without making me cringe with embarrassment or pity. She does it again in this memoir, Aphrodite's Breath, where she recounts her 'Greek Island adventure' with her 85-year-old widowed mother. With breathtaking chutzpah she jettisons her secure job in journalism and sets off for a year on Kythera, sharing the exorbitant cost of travel insurance with her brother in case her mother needs to be airlifted back to Australia for health care. The trip was financed on a shoestring with a publisher's advance, to finish the book that turned out to be From Where I Fell (2021) (see my review) and to write the memoir that turned out to be this book, Aphrodite's Breath.
I should note here that my school holiday sojourns to Burleigh Waters to take my 85-year-old housebound mother for a jaunt to Bunnings or Big W were the only (not-even-remotely-similar) mother-daughter expeditions I've ever organised...
But although Susan's mother and mine shared a forthright capacity to (a-hem) 'know her own mind', Barbara Johnson is an active, spry 85-year-old with all her health conditions well under control. (See her photo here.) In her brief Epilogue at the back of the book, Barbara writes that Kythera will stay in her heart as a year well spent but the early chapters of the memoir tell a different story. Barbara never embraced Kythera as Susan did, and there was constant friction between them, even though Susan suppressed her feelings out of longstanding habit.
The reader soon realises that although these two share a strong bond, and are protective and loyal to one another, they have nothing in common. Barbara enjoyed the stability of home and home-making while also accompanying her husband on corporate travel trips, while Susan was a risk-taker determined to fulfil her creative potential, preferring freelance work and the adventure of living an expat life.
So there were times when the relationship was hazardous. To read the rest of my review please visit https://anzlitlovers.com/2023/05/22/a...
I had read and admired The Broken Book (2005, see Kim's review at Reading Matters) when it was longlisted for the Miles Franklin, the IMPAC Dublin Award and the Commonwealth Writers' Prize, shortlisted for the Commonwealth Writers’ Prize, the Queensland Premier’s Prize for fiction, the Nita B Kibble Award, the Association for the Study of Australian Literature (ALS) Gold Medal Award and the CAL Waverley Library Award for Literature... but I fell in love with Susan Johnson's writing with Life in Seven Mistakes (2008, see my review). That sly black comedy was so brave and honest and true, I almost wept except when I was laughing. I've read everything she's ever published since, and I think I've got her entire backlist on the TBR but Life in Seven Mistakes remains my favourite.Susan is one of those rare writers who can mine aspects of her family life without making me cringe with embarrassment or pity. She does it again in this memoir, Aphrodite's Breath, where she recounts her 'Greek Island adventure' with her 85-year-old widowed mother. With breathtaking chutzpah she jettisons her secure job in journalism and sets off for a year on Kythera, sharing the exorbitant cost of travel insurance with her brother in case her mother needs to be airlifted back to Australia for health care. The trip was financed on a shoestring with a publisher's advance, to finish the book that turned out to be From Where I Fell (2021) (see my review) and to write the memoir that turned out to be this book, Aphrodite's Breath. I should note here that my school holiday sojourns to Burleigh Waters to take my 85-year-old housebound mother for a jaunt to Bunnings or Big W were the only (not-even-remotely-similar) mother-daughter expeditions I've ever organised...But although Susan's mother and mine shared a forthright capacity to (a-hem) 'know her own mind', Barbara Johnson is an active, spry 85-year-old with all her health conditions well under control. (See her photo here.) In her brief Epilogue at the back of the book, Barbara writes that Kythera will stay in her heart as a year well spent but the early chapters of the memoir tell a different story. Barbara never embraced Kythera as Susan did, and there was constant friction between them, even though Susan suppressed her feelings out of longstanding habit.
The reader soon realises that although these two share a strong bond, and are protective and loyal to one another, they have nothing in common. Barbara enjoyed the stability of home and home-making while also accompanying her husband on corporate travel trips, while Susan was a risk-taker determined to fulfil her creative potential, preferring freelance work and the adventure of living an expat life.
So there were times when the relationship was hazardous. To read the rest of my review please visit https://anzlitlovers.com/2023/05/22/a...
August 15, 2023
What a wonderful book to read - especially in situ. I read this book whilst visiting the island of Kythera, my ancestral home. I lived and breathed the villages, the food and even discussed Sue's visit with my relatives - who knew her!
She captures the essence of the island and the dynamic relationships we share with our families and environments.
She captures the essence of the island and the dynamic relationships we share with our families and environments.
July 1, 2023
Didnt finish this. Used to like Johnstone’s early writing but now it’s just too strung out of nothing. I’m not really interested in it when there’s so much else to read. Perhaps she should go back to fiction. Or I should.
May 18, 2023
3.5 stars. Heartfelt, tender story of a mother & daughter’s 12 months living together on Kythera. Interesting study into relationships, especially mother/daughter relationships.
January 4, 2024
I adore Susan Johnson and her writing. I’ve been a fan since I first heard her at an event for ‘The broken book’.
While a memoir of living on a Greek Island for a year with your eighty-five year old mother sounds outrageous, I attended an author talk with my two teenage sons (because their training session finished nearby and parental duties) giving me an inside glimpse of the struggle this book contains.
As I herded my two ungracious and towering teens to the author’s signing table, I had the book signed for a friend as a Christmas gift.
A memoir of travelling, being a daughter and adult is really the story most adults will face. Most of us won’t have the grace or ability to express fully the complicated glory of familial relationship. Bravo, Susan Johnson.
But, I genuinely appreciate the choice to choose kindness in retelling and the inclusion of the last chapter.
While intended as a gift, I quietly read this over the post-Christmas to New Year break. Perfect summer holiday reading.
While a memoir of living on a Greek Island for a year with your eighty-five year old mother sounds outrageous, I attended an author talk with my two teenage sons (because their training session finished nearby and parental duties) giving me an inside glimpse of the struggle this book contains.
As I herded my two ungracious and towering teens to the author’s signing table, I had the book signed for a friend as a Christmas gift.
A memoir of travelling, being a daughter and adult is really the story most adults will face. Most of us won’t have the grace or ability to express fully the complicated glory of familial relationship. Bravo, Susan Johnson.
But, I genuinely appreciate the choice to choose kindness in retelling and the inclusion of the last chapter.
While intended as a gift, I quietly read this over the post-Christmas to New Year break. Perfect summer holiday reading.
November 24, 2023
Much richer than a memoir, this book explores the compromises, micro-aggressions and resentments of many mother/daughter relationships, as well as the love of a daughter for her mother, and reflections on mothering and daughtering, aging, travel and home.
For my complete review, please visit:
https://residentjudge.com/2023/11/24/...
For my complete review, please visit:
https://residentjudge.com/2023/11/24/...
June 18, 2025
I enjoyed the well-written descriptions and reflections of the beautiful island of Kythera, however, I had a problem with Susan's point of view. It seemed she really only wanted her mother along for content for her travelogue, rather than for any genuine relationship goals.
As evidenced by Barbara's epilogue, she did embrace her time on the island, however, at 85, she obviously had limitations.
As evidenced by Barbara's epilogue, she did embrace her time on the island, however, at 85, she obviously had limitations.
October 5, 2025
3.5 stars
An enjoyable insight into the idea of moving to a foreign country for a couple of years when in retirement. It was lovely to read a local Brisbane/Maleny writer. Reminded me a little of when I liked to read Peter Mayle and other travel books but I have no desire to move to Greece after reading this 🤣
An enjoyable insight into the idea of moving to a foreign country for a couple of years when in retirement. It was lovely to read a local Brisbane/Maleny writer. Reminded me a little of when I liked to read Peter Mayle and other travel books but I have no desire to move to Greece after reading this 🤣
July 24, 2023
I started this book on a two week holiday with my mum in the Northern Territory. I did not have the same experience as Susan, noticing differences between her and her mother. But my trip with my mum did make me cherish time with her.
October 13, 2023
A well written book (and I did read the physical book) about the author and her mother's experiences on the island of Kythera. Truth or kindness? Susan Johnson tried to include both, which I appreciate.
July 9, 2024
Dreams and expectations. Susan wanting to recreate a Greek Island experience from her early days and her elderly mother expecting a version of Greece that isn’t the reality. Combine this with a mother/daughter relationship that isn’t always smooth sailing. The writing is painfully honest at times and I recognise so many tensions from my own relationship with my mother. The love is there, but clumsy. It was nice that she discovered some positive writing from her mother, which she included as an epilogue, but I felt sad that she didn’t address her love for Susan in it. She was a woman of her times!
February 27, 2024
I considered giving up on finishing this book several times, as it simply didn't gel with me. The complicated relationship between daughter and Mother on a journey to live together on a Greek Island for a few years, was difficult going for me. It was obviously even more difficult for both the Author and her Mother. The two women seemed to have diametrically different requirements, and the houses they lived in were very challenging for a woman in her eighties. In the end though, the very end that is, I was grateful that I had persisted. The final chapter Ithaca was so brilliantly written that I had to read and re-read it again and again. The epilogue written by the Author's Mother, was also beautifully written, although she probably never expected it to be included in the book. In summary, don't give up, keep going till you get there, then you will be glad, you will know you have arrived.
June 8, 2023
I've never been to Greece but after reading Aphrodite's Breath, it almost feels like I have.
Set on the island of Kythera, Susan Johnson's memoir about that time she moved across the globe with her then 85yo mother is not only beautifully written and utterly heartbreaking, it's also hilarious in a way that's so human and relatable.
Susan lays bare her soul in this book, and for anyone who's a people pleaser, it feels like she's talking to you, or at least, seeing you (or maybe that's just me lol). One of my favourite lines in this book is when Susan talks about being an introvert:
'...several have laughed aloud when I've declared myself an introvert. What I am is a socially fraught person who keeps myself hidden, and who has become so practised at filling empty verbal space that my original shyness has been covered over by so many layers of bullshit even I cannot locate my original speechless self.'
I don't know if I've ever laughed so much. Perhaps because she articulated so clearly how I feel all of the time lol
The adventure she has with her mother Barbara isn't all smooth sailing of course. Calamity, misunderstandings and hilarity ensue while all around them, Kythera beams; in colour and in character.
What a joy to read!
Set on the island of Kythera, Susan Johnson's memoir about that time she moved across the globe with her then 85yo mother is not only beautifully written and utterly heartbreaking, it's also hilarious in a way that's so human and relatable.
Susan lays bare her soul in this book, and for anyone who's a people pleaser, it feels like she's talking to you, or at least, seeing you (or maybe that's just me lol). One of my favourite lines in this book is when Susan talks about being an introvert:
'...several have laughed aloud when I've declared myself an introvert. What I am is a socially fraught person who keeps myself hidden, and who has become so practised at filling empty verbal space that my original shyness has been covered over by so many layers of bullshit even I cannot locate my original speechless self.'
I don't know if I've ever laughed so much. Perhaps because she articulated so clearly how I feel all of the time lol
The adventure she has with her mother Barbara isn't all smooth sailing of course. Calamity, misunderstandings and hilarity ensue while all around them, Kythera beams; in colour and in character.
What a joy to read!
October 24, 2023
Susan Johnson is obviously a talented writer but I really felt that this book was in two halves. They never really integrated for me. The first was about returning to Kythera with her 85 year old mother to live for a year whilst she completed some other writing tasks and all that life on a Greek island entails. The writing about living on the island, finding how locals live and getting to know the locals was great The second half was about her relationship with her mother as it played out under these stresses. This, I felt was less successful. They are clearly both strong willed and the disengagement of her mother by basically going to Greece to watch Netflix didn’t work well for me. I think she wanted the book to play well with both elements and I just found that it didn’t work for me. Her mother disliked everything about the island - too cold, too windy, house wasn’t what she wanted and on and on and Susan retreated to child mode on cue. Interesting to document that but probably not as engaging as a book.
July 26, 2023
Memoir is a slippery beast, one person writing their own truth not only about themselves but about other significant, real people in their life. Rarely have I read a memoir that is as brutally self-reflective, as honestly interrogative, as beautifully written, and as raw and vulnerable as Susan Johnson’s masterpiece Aphrodite’s Breath (Allen and Unwin 2023).
This is the tale of a mother and daughter’s Greek island adventure. The mother, Barbara Johnson, is in her mid 80’s and decides, almost on a whim, to accompany her daughter, Susan Johnson, just 60, to the Greek island of Kythera, where Susan planned to live for a year, finish her novel, and document the whole experience to then write this memoir.
Before they left, after months of planning, financial bean-counting, negotiations for the rentals of a house and a car and a smart TV, one of Susan’s ex-partners remarked: ‘Doesn’t that sound like fun. Mama Mia meets Apocalypse Now.’ Turns out, they were rather prescient.
It all sounded like such a good idea at the time. Rent a house on an island Susan had loved as a younger traveller, a small island full of beauty and friendly locals, eat great food, swim in the pristine waters, re-connect as mother and daughter. What could possibly go wrong?
Quite a lot, as it turns out, and the result is as funny and at times laugh-out-loud hysterically Kafkaesque as it is moving, warm and loving. A once-in-a-lifetime experience that profoundly shifts the dynamic between these two feisty women, opening old wounds and rekindling sharp family barbs, but also bringing them closer than perhaps they had ever been, living together, sharing everything day by day, learning to live in a new place together, and discovering parts of themselves previously hidden or unshared.
This book is about mothers and daughters (and oh! the many permutations and complications of those relationships!); it’s about love, respect, devotion, compromise, home, belonging, adventure, olives, cats, Greek people, Greek food, Greek men, the natural world, ex-pats, writing, weather, festivals, saints, churches, loyalty and discovery.
Susan Johnson holds a mirror to her face and describes with harsh and detailed judgement what she sees – not only her physical being, but the sometimes uncomfortable truths of her personality, her desires, her selfishness, her adoration, her irritability, her sacrifice and her commitment. With a forensic eye, she also studies the people around her – most notably, her own mother, Barbara – with a sensitive steadfastness combined with a critical reality check.
The result is a memoir that is beautiful because it is raw, gritty, self-deprecating, honest, brave, curious and inquisitive, and because it is willing to go further than most; Susan asks questions of herself (and others, but mostly herself) that many people would find hard to ask and sometimes impossible to answer. She is her own harshest critic, which makes for an extraordinary story.
But that truthfulness is not the only reason for this book’s beauty. Susan Johnson is one of Australia’s most accomplished and seasoned writers, both as a journalist and an author. In Aphrodite’s Breath, her writing skills are on full display, with prose that is poetic, lyrical, wondrous and beguiling. Her descriptions of Kythera are as of her spiritual home – every blossom, every ruin, every church, every pebbly beach, every tree in every orchard, every new friend made, every kindness, every silly misunderstanding and trivial annoyance, all combine to fully engage the reader’s senses so that we feel we too have lived and breathed on Kythera; we too feel its siren song. Her depiction of nature, her characterisations of people, her feel for the land and its ancient culture and history, and her intimate portrayal of life, her life, and the life of her mother, and the life they share, come together in illuminating grace.
This memoir is a joy to read. It’s funny and sad, heartfelt and warm, relatable and revealing. Reading it is as if you are sitting with the author in a sunny corner, with a glass of wine or a cup of strong coffee, hearing the tales spill forth in her own voice. She includes the reader in the story, pulls us in until we are tight in the grip of Kythera fever.
This book is also a love song to her mother, who so bravely (some would say stupidly?) accompanied her on this journey. How many 80-year-olds have the courage and wit and flexibility and sense of adventure to not only join their daughter on her ridiculous travels, but to do so on their own terms, sticking rigidly to some routines, and at other times brazenly agreeing to flagrantly disregard the rules?
Despite the difficulties and heartbreak along the way, this journey – and this book – is a gift. A gift from Susan to Barbara, a gift from Susan to the reader, and a gift of truly great and inspirational writing that will be passed from hand to hand, from friend to friend, mother to daughter, granddaughter to mother.
I learnt so much about Greek history and culture and loved the way Susan incorporated Greek (with translations) throughout the story. I saw so much truth and beauty in the mother / daughter relationship. I did not want this story to end.
But end it must, of course, as do all stories. How it ends, the unique and particular beauty of that closure, you must discover for yourself.
Two quotes spoke to me from towards the conclusion of this book: ‘I have always known that I have been blessed throughout my very happy life’ and ‘…when I am gone I want these words to record that I was a wanderer in many lands whose home was love’.
But who said which quote, the mother or the daughter? I will leave it to you, dear reader, to find out.
This is the tale of a mother and daughter’s Greek island adventure. The mother, Barbara Johnson, is in her mid 80’s and decides, almost on a whim, to accompany her daughter, Susan Johnson, just 60, to the Greek island of Kythera, where Susan planned to live for a year, finish her novel, and document the whole experience to then write this memoir.
Before they left, after months of planning, financial bean-counting, negotiations for the rentals of a house and a car and a smart TV, one of Susan’s ex-partners remarked: ‘Doesn’t that sound like fun. Mama Mia meets Apocalypse Now.’ Turns out, they were rather prescient.
It all sounded like such a good idea at the time. Rent a house on an island Susan had loved as a younger traveller, a small island full of beauty and friendly locals, eat great food, swim in the pristine waters, re-connect as mother and daughter. What could possibly go wrong?
Quite a lot, as it turns out, and the result is as funny and at times laugh-out-loud hysterically Kafkaesque as it is moving, warm and loving. A once-in-a-lifetime experience that profoundly shifts the dynamic between these two feisty women, opening old wounds and rekindling sharp family barbs, but also bringing them closer than perhaps they had ever been, living together, sharing everything day by day, learning to live in a new place together, and discovering parts of themselves previously hidden or unshared.
This book is about mothers and daughters (and oh! the many permutations and complications of those relationships!); it’s about love, respect, devotion, compromise, home, belonging, adventure, olives, cats, Greek people, Greek food, Greek men, the natural world, ex-pats, writing, weather, festivals, saints, churches, loyalty and discovery.
Susan Johnson holds a mirror to her face and describes with harsh and detailed judgement what she sees – not only her physical being, but the sometimes uncomfortable truths of her personality, her desires, her selfishness, her adoration, her irritability, her sacrifice and her commitment. With a forensic eye, she also studies the people around her – most notably, her own mother, Barbara – with a sensitive steadfastness combined with a critical reality check.
The result is a memoir that is beautiful because it is raw, gritty, self-deprecating, honest, brave, curious and inquisitive, and because it is willing to go further than most; Susan asks questions of herself (and others, but mostly herself) that many people would find hard to ask and sometimes impossible to answer. She is her own harshest critic, which makes for an extraordinary story.
But that truthfulness is not the only reason for this book’s beauty. Susan Johnson is one of Australia’s most accomplished and seasoned writers, both as a journalist and an author. In Aphrodite’s Breath, her writing skills are on full display, with prose that is poetic, lyrical, wondrous and beguiling. Her descriptions of Kythera are as of her spiritual home – every blossom, every ruin, every church, every pebbly beach, every tree in every orchard, every new friend made, every kindness, every silly misunderstanding and trivial annoyance, all combine to fully engage the reader’s senses so that we feel we too have lived and breathed on Kythera; we too feel its siren song. Her depiction of nature, her characterisations of people, her feel for the land and its ancient culture and history, and her intimate portrayal of life, her life, and the life of her mother, and the life they share, come together in illuminating grace.
This memoir is a joy to read. It’s funny and sad, heartfelt and warm, relatable and revealing. Reading it is as if you are sitting with the author in a sunny corner, with a glass of wine or a cup of strong coffee, hearing the tales spill forth in her own voice. She includes the reader in the story, pulls us in until we are tight in the grip of Kythera fever.
This book is also a love song to her mother, who so bravely (some would say stupidly?) accompanied her on this journey. How many 80-year-olds have the courage and wit and flexibility and sense of adventure to not only join their daughter on her ridiculous travels, but to do so on their own terms, sticking rigidly to some routines, and at other times brazenly agreeing to flagrantly disregard the rules?
Despite the difficulties and heartbreak along the way, this journey – and this book – is a gift. A gift from Susan to Barbara, a gift from Susan to the reader, and a gift of truly great and inspirational writing that will be passed from hand to hand, from friend to friend, mother to daughter, granddaughter to mother.
I learnt so much about Greek history and culture and loved the way Susan incorporated Greek (with translations) throughout the story. I saw so much truth and beauty in the mother / daughter relationship. I did not want this story to end.
But end it must, of course, as do all stories. How it ends, the unique and particular beauty of that closure, you must discover for yourself.
Two quotes spoke to me from towards the conclusion of this book: ‘I have always known that I have been blessed throughout my very happy life’ and ‘…when I am gone I want these words to record that I was a wanderer in many lands whose home was love’.
But who said which quote, the mother or the daughter? I will leave it to you, dear reader, to find out.
April 27, 2025
I found the idea of this book interesting and found it in the bookshop on release, planning to buy it. I did not that day, mainly because despite it being about a woman of 62 returning to Kythera, a Greek island, along with her mother, and experiencing life with the locals, there was not one picture of the island. It was in fact all text, and it didn't engage or interest me.
Now I have read the book online, which I enjoyed but I'm still puzzled by the lack of any photographic material as reference for a story set in a small barren, island that is rich in history from the Ages, it is in fact known as Aphrodite's Breath, for the goddess of love beauty and pleasure.
Susan Johnson describes a harsh environment yet great beauty of the land and the people, as well as the harsh weather and difficulties she and her mother experienced, but there is no visual representation: no drawing or picture. So the story is all a stream of consciousness, a verbal story describing actions, situations, relation of emotional history as well as the practical time line of the author writing the book which was the purpose of the stay on Kythera. So I found it intense and interesting enough to persevere but somehow I felt that the beauty of their experience, especially with the local people, might have been more real or understandable with illustrations.
The issue of the death of her mother is also a part of the story, and I found this quite charming, as she had the chance to be with her mother, for better or worse and indeed in difficult situations as they lived and coped together, bringing them close through shared experience. I think many would be envious of Susan Johnson's time alongside her mum.
An interesting intense read, recommended perhaps as an audiobook
Now I have read the book online, which I enjoyed but I'm still puzzled by the lack of any photographic material as reference for a story set in a small barren, island that is rich in history from the Ages, it is in fact known as Aphrodite's Breath, for the goddess of love beauty and pleasure.
Susan Johnson describes a harsh environment yet great beauty of the land and the people, as well as the harsh weather and difficulties she and her mother experienced, but there is no visual representation: no drawing or picture. So the story is all a stream of consciousness, a verbal story describing actions, situations, relation of emotional history as well as the practical time line of the author writing the book which was the purpose of the stay on Kythera. So I found it intense and interesting enough to persevere but somehow I felt that the beauty of their experience, especially with the local people, might have been more real or understandable with illustrations.
The issue of the death of her mother is also a part of the story, and I found this quite charming, as she had the chance to be with her mother, for better or worse and indeed in difficult situations as they lived and coped together, bringing them close through shared experience. I think many would be envious of Susan Johnson's time alongside her mum.
An interesting intense read, recommended perhaps as an audiobook
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
January 7, 2024
Suddenly an empty nester and suffused by happy memories of a youthful holiday on a Greek island, Susan decides she’d love to live there for a year. Her elderly mother is her only pause point, so she asks her if she’d be interested in going too. To her delight her mother is an immediate and firm yes. Let the adventure begin!
Unfortunately, this exciting premise doesn’t live up to expectations and the adjustment is a huge challenge for the 85 year old Barbara (understandably!!). Susan is in heaven, but dragging a ball and chain with her.
Without giving too much away, I will say that I persisted through this book, which at times was a struggle, and I’m glad I did. The story really did come full circle in a magnificent fashion and with real heartfelt flair.
My biggest takeaway was the simplicity of the life on Kythera. How much of life is still incredibly self sufficient, moving with the seasons, supported by traditions, rituals and the strength of the community. I called my Greek girlfriend up and asked to crash on her next trip back to her homeland. She was thrilled 👍🤗🧡
This book will make you want to eat fresh picked tomatoes under a burning sun, dance in town squares and catch your own dinner in crystal clear waters. Recommend 🌟👍
Unfortunately, this exciting premise doesn’t live up to expectations and the adjustment is a huge challenge for the 85 year old Barbara (understandably!!). Susan is in heaven, but dragging a ball and chain with her.
Without giving too much away, I will say that I persisted through this book, which at times was a struggle, and I’m glad I did. The story really did come full circle in a magnificent fashion and with real heartfelt flair.
My biggest takeaway was the simplicity of the life on Kythera. How much of life is still incredibly self sufficient, moving with the seasons, supported by traditions, rituals and the strength of the community. I called my Greek girlfriend up and asked to crash on her next trip back to her homeland. She was thrilled 👍🤗🧡
This book will make you want to eat fresh picked tomatoes under a burning sun, dance in town squares and catch your own dinner in crystal clear waters. Recommend 🌟👍
August 26, 2023
I just finished this book and I really loved it. If people were wanting a travelogue, then alter your expectations. Her beautiful writing certainly captures their life on Kythera but this is far more an exploration of the complexity of a daughter with her 85 year old mother. That COVId struck close to the time she was planning to return to Australia echoed her often difficult relationship with her mother. I especially loved the final 6 chapters. I think a reason this resonated with me is that my 81 year old mum died when I was on my very first overseas trip at the tender age of 46. I understood completely her desperate efforts to get home when she knew her mother’s health was failing. Loved her mother’s epilogue too.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
September 6, 2025
A stunningly evocative memoir. Johnson writes with honesty and grit, and had me laughing and crying as I compulsively turned to the next page, and the next. She offers a nuanced exploration of the island of Kythera, and of all the quirks of Greek culture, experienced as an outsider. But beyond the appeal of the setting, and the intrigue of the story as it unfolds, this book is a meditation on our own mortality. Still, I was left with the feeling of being lifted, with the impressions of the landscape and people of the island, with the quiet perfection of being a fragile human in search of something more.
July 29, 2023
Susan Johnson is a beautiful writer and a brave and powerful memoirist. This book takes us on a journey that begins with hope and laughter, then delves into the complexities that are the relationship between a daughter and her mother, before breaking our hearts. I laughed and then I cried. The writing was impeccable. I can't ask more from a book. I also love how Susan writes with honesty about being a writer in Australia- "A special breed of wanker" as she says. I love this book and highly recommend it and all of Susan's other books, both fiction and memoir.
June 28, 2023
I loved this book, unequivocally.
I was drawn to read it because a dear friend's family is from Kythera but it is so much more than a travelogue.
Written with immense skill, it is a reflection on many things: on mother's and daughters, families (and how to survive them) on those who stay and those who leave and those who return. On belonging. On language and the consequences of its loss. On island life in all it's nuances and complexities. Poignant, funny and delightful.
I was drawn to read it because a dear friend's family is from Kythera but it is so much more than a travelogue.
Written with immense skill, it is a reflection on many things: on mother's and daughters, families (and how to survive them) on those who stay and those who leave and those who return. On belonging. On language and the consequences of its loss. On island life in all it's nuances and complexities. Poignant, funny and delightful.
October 31, 2023
“It was suddenly clear to me that I was nothing more than a hill of breath, a sigh soon over, that everybody was but a handful of summers. I was my body a body-nothing more or less, and my body's life was sleeping, eating, swimming, dancing, and sitting for hours at a desk, bringing up cargo from below. I had forgotten my old life in Australia: it seemed I had lived like this for a million years, and not for a handful of months…”
Displaying 1 - 30 of 50 reviews