SOPHIA'S RETURN

A memoir of immigration, divorce, and gender roles in modern Greece.

Kouidou-Giles, a Greek immigrant to the United States and child welfare professional, tells her story as a daughter trying to uncover certain truths about her past in 2015—and finding out much more than she expected. The book is dedicated to the author’s mother, Eleni; in the book, she’s called Nitsa, and is shown as rebelling against her society’s expectations of a good wife in order to save herself. The story is told mainly in flashbacks, partially interspersed with chronicles of flights between Athens and Seattle as the author read through decades-old court records of her parents’ divorce. The narrative begins in earnest with the author’s effort to find her mother’s grave in Thessaloniki, Greece, and becomes much deeper; it’s primarily a story of family dysfunction, divorce, and seeming abandonment in patriarchal mid-20th-century Greece. The author is meticulous in describing the social context of a time and place where no-fault divorce didn’t exist, and couples were required to stay together for 10 years before divorce proceedings could even begin. The result is a painfully honest portrayal of how the system could bring needless ugliness to divorce proceedings that left lasting pain and confusion for children caught in the middle. Kouidou-Giles also critiques past gender expectations, while making all the women in the story, including Nitsa’s mother-in-law, YiaYia (Grandma) Sophia, feel real. The book additionally offers a rich presentation of the cultural and legal background of this story of a Greek family, highlighting the contrast between ideals and expectations and messy reality; in particular, the author found that things weren’t what they seemed in the marital breakup. Although the narrative is somewhat slow at first, readers, like the author, eventually come to a greater understanding of all the people involved.

A moving story of a daughter seeking to understand her mother’s choices.