Open Daily: 10am - 10pm | Alley door pickup 10am - 7pm 3038 Hennepin Ave Minneapolis, MN
612-822-4611

  • Open Daily: 10am - 10pm
    Alley-side Pickup: 10am - 7pm

    3038 Hennepin Ave Minneapolis, MN
    612-822-4611

Open Daily: 10am - 10pm | Alley-side Pickup: 10am - 7pm
3038 Hennepin Ave Minneapolis, MN
612-822-4611
Sometimes Cruel: Short Stories

Sometimes Cruel: Short Stories

Koubourlis, Demetrius

Paperback

Biographies GeneralAbusePets: Cats

Publisher Price: $16.39

ISBN13: 9798218286620
Publisher: Axios Eclectics
Published: Oct 1 2023
Pages: 154
Weight: 0.63
Height: 0.42 Width: 6.00 Depth: 9.00
Language: English

This title is best described in the Kirkus Review that follows:


A collection of stories illuminates Koubourlis' travels, beliefs, and experiences with love and pain in this memoir.


Buried within the self-described eclectic author and academic's collection of intimately autobiographical stories are the truths that have made him fortunate in many respects. The physical violence he and his brother endured at the hands of his punishing father, whom he dubs my family's beater-in-chief, inspires the difficult opening story (The Beating), in which he describes the abusive episodes that occurred with regularity throughout their youth and the profound effect it had on them both, mostly in the form of undesirable cultural baggage carried into and throughout early adulthood. Despite this enduring trauma, Koubourlis remains compassionate and forgiving, openly admitting that he is incapable of holding a grudge. Instead, he offers absolution and exoneration with descriptions of the negative effects of war and his father's own childhood status as an orphan as probable explanations for his parents' harsh, stern child-rearing style. A series of first-times lifts the collection with vivid history and a touch of levity as the author shares experiences such as the first awakening of his consciousness (at age 3) when Italian biplanes bombed his Greek city in 1940. Other firsts include the discovery of his very own toy balloon, which he excitedly discovered at the beach. His first experience with youthful, unbridled, amorous infatuation in his hometown of Rio-Patras in 1953 is also luminously realized. The stories progress to the 1970s: in Ephemeral Fame, which takes place when Koubourlis was a young (and homesick) university professor in North Carolina, he reconnected with a favorite childhood musician who, by happenstance, was performing at a Greek restaurant in Chicago. The love of a stray cat in the resonant and sentimental A Message from Afar ends up inspiring a deeper connection between the author and his female companion, Lena. Other stories have more contemporary settings yet still enchant as Koubourlis strums a guitar melody to a garden snake before concluding with a lyrical meditation on the messages found in dreams.

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