THE NAKED GREEK

An adopted man takes a journey of self-discovery in Vlach’s novel.

From a young age, Michael has known that he was adopted. His biological father was Greek, though the family who raises him is not. Michael attends elementary school in the 1950s in the small town of West Pittsburg, California. Life is normal enough until his adoptive father, Jack, dies when Michael is a teenager. Michael, his brother Verne, and their adoptive mother, Virginia, move to a smaller home in Sacramento. As Virginia develops mental health issues, he moves to San Francisco, marries, and starts a family of his own. He then becomes quite curious about his biological lineage; who was this Greek father? As Michael puts it, when passing a Greek restaurant or festival, “anxiety would flow through me like CIA electricity flowed through my mom’s brain.” Interspersed between chapters about Michael’s life and his search for his heritage are flashbacks to various times in history, such as Arcadia in 1605 CE and Sparta in 241 BCE. These sections involve short, often playful scenes, such as one set in ancient Athens in which Sophists criticize Socrates’ philosophy as he walks among his “groupies.” Initially, the shifts back and forth between time periods are jarring; while the past events can be fantastical, Michael’s actions, like taking a DNA test, are not always action-packed. There really is no telling what will come next; often, what does come next is appealingly odd—take, for instance, an appearance by the Roman emperor Nero, who complains about how his wife nagged him for coming home late after singing his “glorious poetry at the Coliseum Slam.” (Nero is also not at all displeased with being called, to his face, “the Great Whore of Babylon.”) Funny, kooky anachronisms and characters run freely in this story that never ceases to offer surprises.

An ambitious, disjointed take on exploring world history and one’s own background.