At the time I went to spend my Christmas gift book tokens "The Island" was top of the paperback best sellers and that was why I bought it. The bookseller tried to put me off it, he said it was by that Hislop woman who he thought was the wife of some obnoxious T.V. critic. In fact it's by Victoria Hislop who writes travel features for the Sunday Telegraph, parenting and education for the Daily Telegraph and general features for Woman and Home. I don't know any more about her. It's published by Headline Book Publishing, cost £6.99, ISBN 0-7553-0951-0.
I found a round sticker on it saying Richard and Judy's Summer Read and thought I might have got the wrong thing; the Observer calls it a "beach book" with a heart. I don't hang around beaches in the summer reading nice books at all so I thought this might not work.
The writing style is nice and easy to read. It was difficult to put down. When you realise the action is taking you to Greece's leper colony off Crete you might think there could be no adventure, romance or interest. The action takes you through the most unthinkable situations with a human and heroic life and love story that makes gripping reading!
25 year old Alexis isn't sure about her partner and on holiday wants to go off alone and find out a bit about where her mother comes from, a small fishing village in Crete. Her mother gives her a letter to show an old friend. Her mother never talked about her childhood ever, so in the background there must be secrets to probe. The village of Plaka looks over the sea to an island called Spinalonga. Alexis visits it and finds tumbledown remains of a thriving community. A leper community which existed from 1903 to 1957. The old friend, Fotini, reads her mother's letter and tells her most of the story. A sometimes tragic yet sometimes triumphant story. Painful and harrowing yet infused with positivity. It turns out that Alexis's great grandmother, Eleni, was a teacher who one day contracted the more virulent strain of leprosy from a young pupil whose parents tried to disguise the condition of their child. Both teacher and child have to take the ferryboat to the island of Spinalonga, the regular ferryman to that sad place being Georgiou, Eleni's husband. And in those days they remained on the island until they died, sometimes in great suffering. Much of the story tells about the community on the island, the changes it goes through, the arrival of Athenian lepers with great skills and rebellious intelligence. Alongside this immensely captivating story evolves the stories of the two daughters left behind, Anna and Maria. At some points the tragedy is overwhelming and yet at others there is cause for great hope and rejoicing as people overcome incredible misfortune. Without spoiling the story for you let me say there are secrets, surprises, life, loving care and humanity in this book. The author has skill at producing an authentic Cretan backdrop with colour and texture permeating details in everything from food to clothes, from customs to lifestyles. There is an education in Hansen's Disease (Leprosy) that may take you out of stereotype images that everyone has planted in their consciousness about the world's oldest disease. There is a long look through history including the German occupation and the advances in medical science. This is a long considered look with real human characters in it which is a joy to read and brings hope into the equation where there was just hopelessness.