Customer Reviews

The Summer of My Greek Taverna

5 star:		(12)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

I found this book very unsatisfying. The author seems to be a man of little sophistication or world experience. It struck me as strange that he would be able to afford a subscription to Gourmet Magazine for years while apparently living on the edge of starvation in his tutoring job.Having spent many wonderful summers eating in tavernas on Greek Islands I found most of his recipes ridiculous and uninventive.His characters were very limited and there seemed to be no reason to read the book or recommend it to anyone else.

Very enjoyable ! Tom Stone is a breath of fresh air in the travel writing world. There is a sensual undercurrent in his writing! Loved this book!

Since I have spent a lot of time on the Island of Patmos, I was glad to learn that this book had been published and I ordered it immediately. I have a few negative observations to make about the book, so I'd better start out with the positive stuff. The book is a pleasant read. In general the author captures the flavor and beauty of the island and its inhabitants. It is also a fast read. But my own experience on the island makes me believe that its people are rather un-Greek in the sense that they are kinda sneaky. They are also generally unhappy people, quite grim. This may be caused by being dominated by the church. One young Patmian I met said he wanted to go away and live in Athens because he couldn't stand the idea of living his whole life in a cemetery. Too much religion makes Demitrios a dull boy.

Now, the book is about how an American gets duped by a Patmian when he agrees to become his partner in a beachside restaurant. This isn't really enough of a story to make a whole book, but as it turns out, it is rather successful because the author has flair and a knack for characterization that he uses effectively.

There may be a problem in the possiblility that readers will get the notion that all Greeks behave in the same underhanded way as the author's alleged partner. They do not. Patmians are a special kind of Greek, which may have something to do with the island's being dominated by the monastery up on the hill. The abbot of the monastery actually functions as the local bishop, and he isn't even a bishop. Most of the monks at the monastery are a pretty sour lot, too. The local priests, on the other hand, are a nice bunch of people who try to make outsiders feel welcome even in church. Strange, isn't it?

The author is also the narrator, and little attempt is made to separate the two. This means there is little literary distance in the work...the author gives the impression of writing in the white heat of his emotional letdown when the whole situation at the restaurant comes to a head and he has to confront his thieving partner. The other characters are portrayed quite well, even the minor ones.

Summing up, this is an interesting story, but is only a story, even though it is probably based on real life experience. But there of not enough of it for a full length book.

Many expatriates write about their Greek experiences but very few get it right. Tom Stone does an amazing job of capturing the Greeks and all their foibles, the place and all its magic, the lifestyle and all its pitfalls. Forget all the other books you may have read by foreigners in Greece and get this one for its authenticity, charm and great writing.

I heard Tom Stone interviewed recently on NPR's "Savvy Traveler." I couldn't wait to read this book, which seemed to promise a wonderful combination of travel and food writing. I was sorry to discover that it delivers nothing more than a tepid narrative of Stone's adventure, made nearly unreadable by the author's self-congratulatory tone. Stone's memoir develops no interesting characters and is so poorly organized, edited, and written that if there was actually a good story there the reader would be too annoyed to enjoy it. I would recommend that Stone employ a ghost writer if he wants to share his personal experiences in print ever again (but since he's a writer by profession this may be too much to expect).

I can't help commenting on the thing that irritated me most about this book, which was Stone's representations of his wife and kids. They were, in this book, just beautiful props without personality, devices for Stone's self-flattering view of himself.

One bright note: I haven't tried any of the recipes yet. Maybe they will redeem this disappointing book.

Like other books of this genre---rich-enough-upper/middle classer eschews conformist corporate lifestyle for simple labor-intensive technologically sparse villa/farm lifestyle in foreign settin---the pure escapist notion of removing oneself from the rat race of traffic jams, cell phones, voice mail and other so-called conveniences of 21st century life somehow acts as a welcome tranquilizer for my overactive and overextended braincells.
Rather than choosing Provence or Tuscany, the author, Tom Stone, decides on the Greek Island of Patmos where John the Evangelist penned his gospel and the feared book of Revelations, as his halycon destination. Tom's reasoning is both nostalgic and capitalistic: it was on Patmos that he met and wooed his wife and wrote his first novel and it is on Patmos that he will accrue enough cash to see himself financially clear for an entire year. All he needs do is rent 'The Beautiful Helen' Taverna for the four hectic months of the summer season, incorporate his multi-national repetoire of delicious menu entrees to the typical Greek fare and through hard work and determination rack in a sizeable fortune.
Unfortunately, Tom overplays his hand with an overindulgence of American optimism. Amidst a silent, embarrassed chorus of less-than-encouraging island characters, Tom learns what the islanders already know: Fresh produce, fine recipes and hard work are not the only ingredients needed in maintaining a successful restaurant,a watchful eye is first and foremost when one is dealing with an unscrupulous partner like the taverna's owner, Theologos.
Soon, Tom's dreamscape of blue water and Greek light are obliviated by the all consuming operation of the taverna. As the Beautiful Helen's popularity increases, Tom's clearly drawn time allocations are blurred into a huge block of toil and varicose veins that barely afford him the time to sleep.
However throughout the Sisyphian tasks of running the taverna, Stone's writing style remains chatty and enthusiastic. Happily, in spite of his bouts with jealous friends, thieving partners, and evil-eye removing witches, Tom remains pleasantly breezy, refusing to let his misjudgement dampen his spirits. Above all, the reader gets the sense that even as he is cast out of his Eden by economic necessity, he is not soured by the presense of the serpent in the garden---his omnipresent need to breath the air of Hellas remains pure and untainted. His exuberance forces us to understand why he undertook the proposition in the first place while his charitable highlighting of the high points of taverna life rather than his humiliations results in a pleasant true-to-life portrayal of the Greek's resolve in business as seasoned by the resource-isolated island life.
One Note: I was saddened that the author's marriage to 'Danielle' ended in divorce no matter how amicable--his love for her was palpable even through the worst of his ordeal.

I read this book hoping for an arm-chair travel experience, like I get from the many books I've read about Italy and Southern France. Stone's honesty is refreshing, but his characters are not fleshed out enough, except for Theologos the thief. The storyline has potential and the setting sounds sublime, but would I want to go there? No way. And who cares how many times he made love to his French wife? We get the point.

Stone does something I always wanted to do - open up a little restaurant on a Greek island (and fall in love, too!) But thank God he did it instead of me! Now I know better than to try something so exhausting and full of pitfalls! On the other hand, I still envy Stone. He lived out his dream and had a romantic adventure I envy, in spite of everything! A wonderful story about a country and a people and a woman he loves - and with great recipes to boot! Also, it's beautiful writing - poetry as prose!

I picked this up and couldn't it down. it is beautifully written with vivid descriptions that made me feel, smell, and taste the Greece I remember from several trips there. it's also a terrific story-about a lot more than just another rose-colored trip to a foreign land. I think Stone has shown the other side of Americans from the typical "Ugly American" stereotype- idealistic, trusting, hopeful, and, unfortunately at times, naive! But very sympathetic and engaging. It is a funny, moving, bittersweet story which I enjoyed immensely.
It also has some great recipes. The moussaka is delicious (but I personally would at least double the amount of the bechamel sauce!)

Sometime stage manager and screenwriter Stone describes a sojourn in the eastern Aegean darkly tinged by recrimination, doubt, and regret. Perhaps it's the author's decision to disguise the exact location of his foray into food service on the Greek island of Patmos, as well as to change the names of pivotal characters, that brings overtones of contrivance to haunt this narrative. In his early 40s, Stone leases a taverna in partnership with the owner for a single summer of fantasy-fulfillment. He's accompanied by his French wife Danielle, a cipher save for the attributes of sensual beauty coupled with textbook Gallic moral superiority, and their two young children. From there ensues a series of events in which a stereotypical American babe in the woods enraptured by a foreign culture bumps up against the reality of how its actual members live day to day. While Stone is eminently capable of setting the scene and telling a story, he is not a natural humorist. His shtick is to overindulge in self-deprecation while vacillating between idolatry and assassination of supposed Greek national character traits. The author maintains, for example, that if you are a guest in a Greek's house, "he'll give you the shirt off his back," but that if you have done prior business with him, "it's probably your shirt." This less-than-subtle approach assures that readers will feel foreboding even as the lights twinkle in the summer night and customers flock in, confirming at least temporarily Stone's theory that an amateur cook with his expertise could successfully upgrade a typical taverna's fare. (He includes a few recipes from a menu of mostly familiar Greek dishes, with a couple of eclectic additions like chili con carne.) When the denouement arrives, replete with temptation, betrayal, guilt, and alienation, it lands like a plate of cold moussaka. Wistful, bittersweet odyssey of a bad business deal.