The Sailor's Wife
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Description of The Sailor's Wife
The Sailor's Wife, by Helen Benedict, is a novel set in Greece in 1975, just after the fall of the Colonels' seven-year dictatorship. Joyce Perlman, a naive young woman from a Miami suburb, meets and marries a Greek merchant marine named Nikos. He takes her back to his peasant parents on a remote island, and leaves her there for more than two years, rarely returning.
Joyce finds herself living the merciless life of a Greek peasant woman, at the command of people steeped in religion,
misogyny, superstition and their experiences of war. Yet, for the first time in her life, she feels that she has
a purpose. She finds the village community, the urgency of farming and the love of her in-laws more rewarding
than anything she experienced in what she considers her empty, vacuous life in Florida.
For two years Joyce tries to keep her marriage alive so that she can stay in this new life she loves, but this becomes increasingly difficult. As she learns Greek, she comes to understand Nikos in a way she couldn't when they had no language but love between them, and she does not like what she discovers. And then she meets Alex, a young Englishman on the island to visit his aunt, who represents everything she has given up: modernity, education, freedom, passion.
By following Joyce's struggle to balance duty and love, safety and challenge, ambition and obligation, the novel examines the role of women, the nature of freedom and the tensions between love and independence.
—Cathi Hannauer, Glamour, 2000
"A girl from the suburbs of Miami marries a Greek sailor in the merchant marine and runs away with him to Ifestia, a remote Mediterranean island, in this vivid... novel by Benedict (Bad Angel). The year is 1975, and 20-year-old Joyce has been living the life of a Greek peasant woman for two years, lodged with her husband Nikos's parents while Nikos is at sea.
Whereas before she painted her toenails and read romances, now she milks goats and sells vegetables at the village market. Her beautiful but spoiled Nikos is gone for months at a time, returning home to complain that Joyce has still given him no son. Joyce, in turn, works hard during the day, suffering the misogyny and superstitions of her adopted home, writhing in lonely desire at night. Yet she finds the rhythms of island life fulfilling, and her in-laws' harsh love more satisfying than the suburban emptiness she knew before. She endures until she meets Alex Gidding, an Englishman with Greek family, and is reminded of the freedoms women enjoy elsewhere. From their first encounter, the novel accelerates, as Joyce struggles to resist Alex's seductions, remain loyal to her new family and, most importantly, define and accept who she is and what she wants. Benedict's prose is lyrical...: Nikos's muscles ripple "like contented animals," and whitewashed houses resemble melted sugar. Most rewarding is Benedict's description of Ifestia, which is rendered as simultaneously familiar and strange, populated by a complex people who speak in epic cadences, are filled with conflicting emotions and are haunted by a bloody national history."
—(Oct.) © 2000 Cahners Business Information
2)What is Benedict saying abut freedom and what it means to the various characters in the book—Joyce, Dimitra, Petros, Alex, Nikos?
3) Is the reader intended to see Nikos as totally in the wrong, or are there ways in which the reader can understand his point of view?
4) How does Benedict convey the sights, sounds, and smells of Greece?
5) What is Benedict saying about American society?
6) What is Benedict saying about the old ways of village life versus the modern, urban life Joyce knew in America?
7) What does the ending tell us about what Joyce has learned?
8) What is the book saying about the role of women in both ancient and modern societies?
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For two years Joyce tries to keep her marriage alive so that she can stay in this new life she loves, but this becomes increasingly difficult. As she learns Greek, she comes to understand Nikos in a way she couldn't when they had no language but love between them, and she does not like what she discovers. And then she meets Alex, a young Englishman on the island to visit his aunt, who represents everything she has given up: modernity, education, freedom, passion.
By following Joyce's struggle to balance duty and love, safety and challenge, ambition and obligation, the novel examines the role of women, the nature of freedom and the tensions between love and independence.
Publisher's Comments
Helen Benedict brilliantly conjures a world of peasants, soldiers, fishermen, and peddlers. The Sailor's Wife is a tour de force, a rare glimpse at an ancient culture peopled with sharply drawn and memorable characters, where a modern woman is plucked from her comfortable American nest and set down in a harsh and primitive environment.Reviews:
"They meet in a Florida supermarket: Jewish virgin Joyce and gorgeous Greek sailor Nikos. Soon they elope to the Greek island Ifestia, where women are subservient, work is brutal and—with Nikos at sea—Joyce is a slave to her peasant in-laws. Yet Joyce finds her new life oddly comforting, until a young Englishman appears and reminds her of everything she's lost. Can Joyce get her groove back? Grab this surprising novel to find out."—Cathi Hannauer, Glamour, 2000
"A girl from the suburbs of Miami marries a Greek sailor in the merchant marine and runs away with him to Ifestia, a remote Mediterranean island, in this vivid... novel by Benedict (Bad Angel). The year is 1975, and 20-year-old Joyce has been living the life of a Greek peasant woman for two years, lodged with her husband Nikos's parents while Nikos is at sea.
Whereas before she painted her toenails and read romances, now she milks goats and sells vegetables at the village market. Her beautiful but spoiled Nikos is gone for months at a time, returning home to complain that Joyce has still given him no son. Joyce, in turn, works hard during the day, suffering the misogyny and superstitions of her adopted home, writhing in lonely desire at night. Yet she finds the rhythms of island life fulfilling, and her in-laws' harsh love more satisfying than the suburban emptiness she knew before. She endures until she meets Alex Gidding, an Englishman with Greek family, and is reminded of the freedoms women enjoy elsewhere. From their first encounter, the novel accelerates, as Joyce struggles to resist Alex's seductions, remain loyal to her new family and, most importantly, define and accept who she is and what she wants. Benedict's prose is lyrical...: Nikos's muscles ripple "like contented animals," and whitewashed houses resemble melted sugar. Most rewarding is Benedict's description of Ifestia, which is rendered as simultaneously familiar and strange, populated by a complex people who speak in epic cadences, are filled with conflicting emotions and are haunted by a bloody national history."
—(Oct.) © 2000 Cahners Business Information
Discussion Questions:
1) Why did Benedict choose the following epigram from "Zorba the Greek"? "I think only people who want to be free are human beings. Women don’t want to be free. Well, is a woman a human being?"2)What is Benedict saying abut freedom and what it means to the various characters in the book—Joyce, Dimitra, Petros, Alex, Nikos?
3) Is the reader intended to see Nikos as totally in the wrong, or are there ways in which the reader can understand his point of view?
4) How does Benedict convey the sights, sounds, and smells of Greece?
5) What is Benedict saying about American society?
6) What is Benedict saying about the old ways of village life versus the modern, urban life Joyce knew in America?
7) What does the ending tell us about what Joyce has learned?
8) What is the book saying about the role of women in both ancient and modern societies?
read reviews or purchase