Aegean Summer: A Family Odyssey

Rating:
Summary: Finding family
Review: This book is a personal family history of a special vacation that changed one family's lives. In the 1960s, Mimi Summerskill was a divorced mother of five, who, in addition to bringing up her children alone, was also required to support her ex-husband, who was mentally ill and hospitalized. She was working long hours trying to get her travel business established, and shared her house with another single mom. Her eldest son was getting ready to start law school, and the remaining children were approaching university age, when out of the blue, Mimi received an inheritance of $30,000. She could have set the money aside for the children's education, but instead, Mimi decided they would have one last vacation together, as a family. She felt that over the years, her children had missed much of being a family, between her ex-husband's illness, and her struggle to keep food on the table, and she was determined to provide a family experience that would stay with them forever. On a whim, she took the inheritance money, traveled to Greece and rented a yacht with crew for 3 months. All five of her children joined her on the yacht, and together they explored the islands and their relationships as a family under the Greek sun. Over the course of the summer, Greece got under their skin, and they established a second home there together.

This is no ordinary travel book- -it's a very personal story about an extremely difficult time in a family's life. Each of the individuals was poised to move on; indeed, some had already taken steps away. This trip remade them and gave them a new center to start from. The writing is extremely smooth, effectively balancing descriptive details and diary events with introspective analysis. It's a great story of what a determined woman can accomplish with the help of her family.