Written in first person, the biography unfolds as the
narrator describes her experiences. The story is interwoven with the affects of
cancer and death on the narrator, and trips to Greece, which hold a significant
place in the narrator’s heart. She feels the most spiritual peace in Greece,
and believes that her healing comes from true understanding of herself in the
world, and of her life after the death of both her father and her husband. She
often refers to Greek mythology to try to gain a better understanding of life
and death.
Grave Markers, Bird Feathers, and the Aegean Sea has potential to be a great story;
however, poor characterization makes it difficult to sympathize with the
situations that the characters claim to be dire and sad. Left nameless, the
characters of the story are not shown to the reader; they are merely told. The
narrator tells the reader about what she’s experiencing, and how those
experiences make her feel, however, we know nothing about her, or her family.
The lack of background information deprives the reader of one of the most
important parts of a story: Where the characters have come from, in turn,
making it hard for the reader to understand where they want to go.
Unfortunately, not only were the family member’s flat characters, but the main
character, the narrator, was also flat. Throughout the story, the narrator
tries to come out of the depression that sets in after her father and husband
die. At the end of the story, she tells
her children that she has changed. However, as a reader, I did not see a
change.
There were so many instances in which I hoped for a
scene rather than just the narrator’s internal thoughts about the situations
that she and her family were in. Instead of her telling the reader how the
death of her husband made her feel, I wanted to see what that emotion drove her
to do. There were a few moments in the story where I slowed down my reading and
savored the scene. For example, on one of her trips to Greece, the narrator
remembers that her husband bought her a necklace when they were in Greece
together, and she misses that moment, trying to see the reflection of the
necklace in a window. It was a wonderful image, but one of the very few we are
given. The author does portray the typical coping-with-loss methods, like the
narrator remodeling her house and traveling to break through the sadness.
However, most of the situations have been done over and over in literature. I
was hoping for something unique or interesting, and was disappointed. Most
scenes are made up of the narrator’s thoughts about her trips to Greece, which
felt more like a history lesson rather than an attempt to put the narrator in a
situation in which she would react and the reader would see the characters true
nature and desires. Seeing the characters act out their emotions would have
better depicted their personalities and given the reader a chance to connect
with them.
Overall, the lack of characterization and language
issues distracted me from being concerned about the cancer and other illnesses
that spread through the family. The fact that the characters didn’t have any names
made it hard to keep track of which of her children she was talking about,
created a disconnect between the characters, and made the language feel choppy.
Perhaps the cancer was a character, and the only one that was given a name, to
capture the reader’s sole focus. With more attention to character development
and the refining of diction, this could be a story about a woman who wanted to
find the real meaning of life, and to find a way to cope with the “anguish”
that these deaths bring into her life. For readers looking for more of a memoir
about a woman’s internal thoughts while coping with a loved one’s death, this
could very well be the right book for them.
