CHIMERA

Stathoplos, a professional actor and educator, offers personal and professional stories from a multifaceted life.

The author opens her collection with the multiple definitions of the word chimera—from a fire-breathing female monster to an illusory hope to a thing made up of many different parts. Her connection to this sobriquet is clear from the first few stories, which jump through time, from her childhood, when she says that she overcame an irregular spinal curvature without surgery, to the births of her children and her divorce from her first husband, all within the first 50 pages. After this whirlwind opening, the themes of Stathoplos’ stories begin to emerge. She’s a lifelong actor who’s performed more than 100 roles onstage and played several parts in films. In midlife, she was encouraged by a fellow professional actor to apply for a job at a school.Despite having little initial interest in working in education, she was quickly hired as a member of the special education team at a local high school and flourished in the role, eventually becoming a certified teacher of students with disabilities while continuing to play the role of Maria Callas six times a week onstage in the show Master Class at Portland, Maine’s Good Theater. Stathoplos writes that she related deeply to the students she taught: “Being wildly misunderstood is another connection I have with ‘behavior kids.’ And, I hate the ‘behavior’ moniker; everyone ‘behaves’ all the time, sometimes well, and sometimes, well….” The memoir also includes many difficult passages, such as accounts of her family’s reaction to her divorce, of a student’s overdose, and of her son’s extreme episodes of depression. However, Stathoplos consistently leavens her story with humor. Although the book’s structure occasionally disrupts the flow, with some chapters juxtaposed in ways that abruptly shift the pace or tone—moving from a stressful workplace meeting directly to a funeral, for example—the author’s openhearted embrace of challenges and clear eye for specific detail consistently shine through.

An impressive and heartfelt collection of memories.