My Xanthi

by Stephanie Cotsirilos

Overview

A Greek immigrant woman's wartime secrets teach a criminal defense lawyer about love's triumph over injustice.

My Xanthi brings together the clashing worlds of cantankerous, loveable criminal defense lawyer Nick Milonas: southern California where he lives with his Korean-American wife and twin daughters, the suburban Midwest where his proudly assimilating family raised him during the 1950s and 60s, and the bloody Greek history his forebears and his second-most-beloved maternal presence fled. Heard through her posthumous letters, Xanthi's loving, cynical, heroic voice triggers Nick's slide into memory and long-held secrets - driving him to embrace the laughter and collapse of innocence among his lost loved ones, his clients, his conscience, and the daughters he hopes will greet their future with clarity and stubborn humanism.

My Xanthi takes an unflinching look at the human heart in upheaval - and at what endures.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9798218176945
Publisher:	Stephanie Cotsirilos
Publication date:	06/01/2023
Pages:	206
Product dimensions:	5.00(w) x 8.00(h) x 0.47(d)

Editorial Reviews

". . . Xanthi gingerly entrusts her fate to the Milonas family and becomes an indispensable maternal figure. Xanthi leaves . . . the reader with a question to puzzle over: "Are courage and honesty the same? Or do they eat one another." This novella tackles the relationship between justice and morality and asserts that, above all, 'the human story needs a champion' . . . A story of love and loyalty that . . . finds a sharp moral focus." -Kirkus Reviews

"A beautiful, lyrical novella drawing the reader in with its suspenseful first sentence, My Xanthi is a probing exploration of the ravages of (un)civil uprisings, resistance, dislocation, and survival. It is also the story of one woman's bravery, resilience, and ability to endure the unimaginable while holding love deeply in her heart. Cotsirilos has written a powerful contemporary Greek tragedy that is all too familiar today. With her gifts of language and storytelling, Cotsirilos is an author to follow." -Susan Clampitt, Former Deputy Chairman, National Endowment for the Arts

"If you're lucky, every once in a while, you come across a book that overcomes you with its powerful story. My Xanthi, from first-time novelist Stephanie Cotsirilos, did that for me . . . My Xanthi has the moral heft of a much longer novel . . . [and] brilliantly juxtaposes the commonplace with the horrors of war and the desire for retribution." -Frank O Smith, PEN/Bellwether finalist and reviewer, Portland Press Herald

"At once a coming-of-age story, a reckoning, and a taut psychological thriller, My Xanthi is a fearless look at law and justice and the difference between them. Cotsirilos' gift for character development through voice along with her vivid, incandescent prose and intimate familiarity with the violence that convulsed both Greece and the United States during the last century, combine to reveal how a secret can send fault lines through several generations and across continents." -Carol Smith, Pulitzer Prize nominated journalist and author of Crossing the River: Seven Stories that Saved My Life

From the Publisher