Her entry begins:The last book I read was Jeanette Winterson’s Why Be Happy When You Could be Normal – a beautiful, hilarious and distressing look back at the childhood that was made famous by her first book Oranges are Not the Only Fruit. Adopted and brought up in an unhappy, Pentecostal, working-class household in northern England, Winterson brings shame to her adopted mother by admitting she is gay. The response is what gave the book’s title. What Winterson also reveals is how hard it was to leave behind her painful past, even after huge success as a writer. Although it is often dark, the story is one of brutal honesty and...[read on]About The House on Paradise Street, from the publisher:
In 2008 Antigone Perifanis returns to her old family home in Athens after 60 years in exile. She has come to attend the funeral of her only son, Nikitas,Learn more about the book and author at Sofka Zinovieff's website.who was born in prison, and whom she has not seen since she left him as a baby.
At the same time, Nikitas’s English widow Maud – disturbed by her husband’s strange behaviour in the days before his death – starts to investigate his complicated past. She soon finds herself reigniting a bitter family feud, and discovers a heartbreaking story of a young mother caught up in the political tides of the Greek Civil War, forced to make a terrible decision that will blight not only her life but that of future generations...
The Page 69 Test: The House on Paradise Street.
Writers Read: Sofka Zinovieff.
--Marshal Zeringue
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