The Summer of My Greek Taverna: A Memoir

Rating:
Summary: Getting It Right
Review: Many expatriates write about their Greek experiences but very few get it right. Tom Stone does an amazing job of capturing the Greeks and all their foibles, the place and all its magic, the lifestyle and all its pitfalls. Forget all the other books you may have read by foreigners in Greece and get this one for its authenticity, charm and great writing.

Rating:
Summary: Getting It Right
Review: Many expatriates write about their Greek experiences but very few get it right. Tom Stone does an amazing job of capturing the Greeks and all their foibles, the place and all its magic, the lifestyle and all its pitfalls. Forget all the other books you may have read by foreigners in Greece and get this one for its authenticity, charm and great writing.

Rating:
Summary: Superb!!!
Review: Move over Paul Theroux, for here is a travel book of such elegant prose and heartfelt joy, love, and delight that it's destined to be a classic.

Rating:
Summary: The Summer of my Greek Taverna
Review: Save your money and read "Extra Virgin" instead.

In a book about someone opening a greek restaurant, it takes the author half the pages to even begin cooking his first meal. Much of the book is given to the author's whining about money, unfair deals and his struggles.

And to Tom (the author), thanks for reminding us that you sleep in the nude. That added so much to the book.

No laugh out loud moments here and the recipes are just really filler to pad the book.

Rating:
Summary: Enthusiastic about Patmos
Review: Since I have spent a lot of time on the Island of Patmos, I was glad to learn that this book had been published and I ordered it immediately. I have a few negative observations to make about the book, so I'd better start out with the positive stuff. The book is a pleasant read. In general the author captures the flavor and beauty of the island and its inhabitants. It is also a fast read. But my own experience on the island makes me believe that its people are rather un-Greek in the sense that they are kinda sneaky. They are also generally unhappy people, quite grim. This may be caused by being dominated by the church. One young Patmian I met said he wanted to go away and live in Athens because he couldn't stand the idea of living his whole life in a cemetery. Too much religion makes Demitrios a dull boy.

Now, the book is about how an American gets duped by a Patmian when he agrees to become his partner in a beachside restaurant. This isn't really enough of a story to make a whole book, but as it turns out, it is rather successful because the author has flair and a knack for characterization that he uses effectively.

There may be a problem in the possiblility that readers will get the notion that all Greeks behave in the same underhanded way as the author's alleged partner. They do not. Patmians are a special kind of Greek, which may have something to do with the island's being dominated by the monastery up on the hill. The abbot of the monastery actually functions as the local bishop, and he isn't even a bishop. Most of the monks at the monastery are a pretty sour lot, too. The local priests, on the other hand, are a nice bunch of people who try to make outsiders feel welcome even in church. Strange, isn't it?

The author is also the narrator, and little attempt is made to separate the two. This means there is little literary distance in the work...the author gives the impression of writing in the white heat of his emotional letdown when the whole situation at the restaurant comes to a head and he has to confront his thieving partner. The other characters are portrayed quite well, even the minor ones.

Summing up, this is an interesting story, but is only a story, even though it is probably based on real life experience. But there of not enough of it for a full length book.

Rating:
Summary: The Summer of My Greek Taverna: A Memoir
Review: Sometime stage manager and screenwriter Stone describes a sojourn in the eastern Aegean darkly tinged by recrimination, doubt, and regret. Perhaps it's the author's decision to disguise the exact location of his foray into food service on the Greek island of Patmos, as well as to change the names of pivotal characters, that brings overtones of contrivance to haunt this narrative. In his early 40s, Stone leases a taverna in partnership with the owner for a single summer of fantasy-fulfillment. He's accompanied by his French wife Danielle, a cipher save for the attributes of sensual beauty coupled with textbook Gallic moral superiority, and their two young children. From there ensues a series of events in which a stereotypical American babe in the woods enraptured by a foreign culture bumps up against the reality of how its actual members live day to day. While Stone is eminently capable of setting the scene and telling a story, he is not a natural humorist. His shtick is to overindulge in self-deprecation while vacillating between idolatry and assassination of supposed Greek national character traits. The author maintains, for example, that if you are a guest in a Greek's house, "he'll give you the shirt off his back," but that if you have done prior business with him, "it's probably your shirt." This less-than-subtle approach assures that readers will feel foreboding even as the lights twinkle in the summer night and customers flock in, confirming at least temporarily Stone's theory that an amateur cook with his expertise could successfully upgrade a typical taverna's fare. (He includes a few recipes from a menu of mostly familiar Greek dishes, with a couple of eclectic additions like chili con carne.) When the denouement arrives, replete with temptation, betrayal, guilt, and alienation, it lands like a plate of cold moussaka. Wistful, bittersweet odyssey of a bad business deal.

Rating:
Summary: Living Out a Romantic Dream
Review: Stone does something I always wanted to do - open up a little restaurant on a Greek island (and fall in love, too!) But thank God he did it instead of me! Now I know better than to try something so exhausting and full of pitfalls! On the other hand, I still envy Stone. He lived out his dream and had a romantic adventure I envy, in spite of everything! A wonderful story about a country and a people and a woman he loves - and with great recipes to boot! Also, it's beautiful writing - poetry as prose!

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Summary: legendarytimes.com says
Review: Stone's love story of running a Greek Taverna over the course of one summer is a gem. Rarely have I read a book that has engulfed me in its essence and put me in the middle of the narrative. I particularly took to the book because reading Stone's words I became completely engrossed with the many similarities I myself have encountered when spending my summers in Greece.

Stone's lush descriptions of the island of Patmos allow you to travel there instantly, him supplying you with the sights, sounds, and the smell of each moment in time. Paragraphs such as "There are places that seem to be waiting for you out there somewhere, like unmet lovers, and when (and if) you come upon them, you know, instantly and unquestioningly, that they are the ones. It is as if, far back in time, there had been an intimate connection to that very spot or person. So it was with Livadi. Even from as far away as the deck of the Mimeka, it had been love at first sight. I knew that there I would find not simply a house to rent but a place to belong to. Like Odysseus, I felt as if I were coming home to Ithaca after a long voyage through the troubled waters of foreign lands (including my birthplace) whose languages I had never really understood. [...] And it still amazes me to think that at that very moment, on another part of Patmos, in a little house on a cove that I had passed on the road to Livadi, the future mother of my children was sittting on her terrace pondering, as I was, what she was really going to do with her life now that she had finally gotten here."

Words like these are simply candy for the eyes and the heart. It allows you to be captured by the warmth, and the true essence of the author's passion for life. Sending chills down my spine I could picture Stone's arrival at that place, identifying many instances where I myself had the same feelings, be it Santorini or Egypt.

Tom Stone's journey to Greece started out quite "harmless" as an incentive to finish a novel he'd been writing for some time but just needed a place with the appropriate inspiration to fire off his last few chapters. Secluding himself like a monk for a month, he actually finished his novel, achieving what he came to Patmos for to do. As fate would have it, within weeks, another novel, his first, got sold. With his new-found "wealth" he thought "Why not stay for another month?" and another, and another... resulting in Tom Stone spending some 20 years in Greece. Patmos served as the stage for his life's play where he met his wife, and experienced his kids' growing up. In the 20 years, one of his most memorable experiences was running a Greek Taverna, The Beautiful Helen, for one summer, which, besides serving the traditonal Greek fare, he supplied with unique dishes he's concocted himself. For cooking afiocionadoes, Stone supplies you with detailed recipes of each of the dishes served at The Beautiful Helen that summer.

I could sense that even though Theologos (Stone's restaurant partner) royally cheated Stone over, he has not lost his love for Greece. Being Greek myself, it is good to know that by way of Stone's writing, deep in his heart he knows that not every Greek is a Theologos. There still are Greeks who hold honor and integrity very dear. Still, Stone's take on the life and culture of Greeks is as close as anyone's ever written.

The book's masterfully written with great wit and humor, full of adventure and comical situations, and a great way to experience Greece from home. You'll undoubtedly feel like you're at The Beautiful Helen and an integral part of the action.

Rating:
Summary: Enjoyable read
Review: This was a nice, enjoyable book. I didn't think the descriptions of Greece were as vivid as some other writers (like Frances Mayes can do for Italy), but it was quality writing and had some funny moments. I especially liked that this author wrote about a negative experience, and yet managed to not make Greece seem negative because of what happened to him. I look forward to more of Stone's books.

Rating:
Summary: The Real Thing
Review: Tom Stone captures the look, feel, sound and taste of Greece and serves it up in a bittersweet recipe of broken dreams. It's the real thing says someone who's been there, done that and is still there. Well done.