MY XANTHI

An epistolary novella follows the struggles of a Greek American family and the Greek immigrant nanny who worked for them.

Cotsirilos’ protagonist is 66-year-old Nick Milonas, a married criminal defense lawyer in Southern California who’s the father of 17-year-old twins, Tessa and Maddie. He and Tessa clash over his defense of guilty clients, and Nick contemplates her emotional conclusions about criminality and justice with an attitude that swings between rashness and reflection. Over the course of a sleepless night, his musings are interspersed with flashbacks to his childhood with his Greek nanny, Xanthi, who died in 1994. Her daughter, Koula, recently sent Nick bundles of letters that she and Xanthi sent each other over the years. Cotsirilos’ portrayal of Nick’s relationships with his wife and daughters feels somewhat superficial. However, he strikes a more nuanced and purposeful tone in Xanthi’s letters, which are familial and sympathetic. As Nick reads through the correspondence, readers catch glimpses of American life as seen through an immigrant’s eyes, as Xanthi gingerly entrusts her fate to the Milonas family and becomes an indispensable maternal figure. Just as importantly, readers get flashes of Xanthi’s life in war-torn Greece, which starkly contrasts with the lush surroundings of mid-20th-century America. Over the course of the novella, Xanthi hints at a grisly past that she’s kept from everyone around her, but she eventually confesses her darkest secret to teenage Nick before leaving the family for good. Xanthi leaves Nick, and 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.” Ultimately, however, it offers more questions than answers.

A story of love and loyalty that takes time to get going but eventually finds a sharp moral focus.