Theodora Patrona, Return Narratives. Ethnic Space in Late-Twentieth-Century Greek American and Italian American Literature Fairleigh Dickinson University Press, 2017. Pp. 209. ISBN: 9781611479959 Sostene M. Zangari In his poem “Heritage,” Countee Cullen articulates the cultural void affecting African-American intellectuals who, denied direct access to their ancestral home, were not able to turn its culture and traditions into that ‘usable past’ that could provide the foundations for construct..

Zangari, Sostene M.

European Journal of American Studies

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European journal of American studies  
Reviews 2018-1
Theodora Patrona, Return Narratives. Ethnic Space in
Late-Twentieth-Century Greek American and Italian
American Literature
Sostene M. Zangari
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URL: http://journals.openedition.org/ejas/12480
ISSN: 1991-9336
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Greek American and Italian American Literature », European journal of American studies [Online], Reviews
2018-1, Online since 18 May 2018, connection on 29 April 2019. URL : http://journals.openedition.org/
ejas/12480 
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Theodora Patrona, Return Narratives.
Ethnic Space in Late-Twentieth-Century
Greek American and Italian American
Literature
Sostene M. Zangari
1 Theodora Patrona, Return Narratives. Ethnic Space in Late-Twentieth-Century Greek American
and Italian American Literature
2 Fairleigh Dickinson University Press, 2017. Pp. 209. ISBN: 9781611479959
3 Sostene M. Zangari
4 In his poem “Heritage,” Countee Cullen articulates the cultural void affecting African-
American intellectuals who, denied direct access to their ancestral home, were not able to
turn its culture and traditions into that ‘usable past’ that could provide the foundations
for  constructing  a  specific  culture:  what  did  Africa  represent  to  a  poet,  “century
removed/from the scenes his fathers loved?” The same question is increasingly being
asked in literary works by American writers of diverse ethnic background, and Theodora
Patrona’s timely Return Narratives. Ethnic Space in Late-Twentieth-Century Greek American and
Italian American Literature attempts to account for several publications where authors of
Italian and Greek ancestry of the latter part of the 20th century have made a journey back
to  the  land  of  their  forefathers.  Seen  in  the  light  of  an  increasingly  global  and
interconnected world scenario, where individuals feel increasingly uprooted, the search
for origins and authenticity provides the antidote to fill an identity void – a trend that
several industries have been quick to exploit flooding markets with goods endowed with
ethnic flavour, from foods to t-shirts. Books, as well, have played their part in this new
consumption trend,  and scores of  return narratives –  with authors telling their  own
pilgrimage to the homeland of their ancestors – have found their way to the bookshelves.
Aiming at discovering how these return journeys are “connected with the recourse to
ethnic cultural pools” and how this combination is “affected by the constantly changing
framework of social, historical, and economic conditions” (xiv), Patrona’s contribution
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provides one of the first thorough surveys of this new field, and attempts to push ethnic
studies towards new territories. The comparative approach, adds depth to the analysis by
stressing how the same trends are to be seen across ethnic lines, making the theme of
‘return’ a very crucial one for understanding our contemporary age.
5 The book is divided into three sections, where Patrona examines in parallel one book
from each tradition.  The first  part  focuses  on Daphne Athas’s  Cora (1978)  and Helen
Barolini’s Umbertina (1979), novels that trace “the harsh road toward self-definition” (31)
featuring women who try to use the ethnic space of the homeland in order to recover the
relationship with lost ancestors and find new forms of personal agency. Barolini’s quest
unfolds across four generations starting from the immigrant Umbertina and ending with
an empowered granddaughter who, bearing her ancestor’s name, symbolically closes the
latter’s initial impulse towards liberation; Athas, on the other hand, frames the feminist
trajectory as an attempt to escape an ethnic male’s desire to imprison a female figure into
traditional subordinate roles. Don Tsiambalis’s project, however, is doomed to fail as the
title character Cora manages to carve “a new empowered self” (23), with immersion into
the  Greek  landscape  triggering  an  internal  transformation  that  will  turn  her  from
submissive housewife to confident woman ready for a new beginning.
6 It is the second section, though, where Catherine Temma Davidson’s The Priest Fainted
(1998)  and  Susan  Caperna  Lloyd’s  No  Pictures  in  My  Grave (1992)  are  discussed,  that
provides the most intriguing insight into the overlapping between ethnic literature and
contemporary consumption patterns. In these books, the journeys toward self-definition
are mediated through “pre-fabricated notions of the home country” (61); the land of the
ancestors is approached by exploiting the lens of myth. This which, in Patrona’s view,
reduces Greek and Italy to a catalogue of uncomplicated images for easy and untroubled
consumption. The authors employ an approach defined as “celebratory, self-gratifying,
and pacifying” (148)  which is  in tune with the escapist  mood of  causal  readers.  The
narrators’ engagement with the fatherland is personal and short-term: supported by the
spending power of their deep pockets, narrators indulge in temporary relief from the
gender barriers they have left in the US – an attitude that, according to Patrona, leads to
an “obliteration of all female struggles” (74). But whereas Davidson’s journey presents at
least the unnamed narrator’s attempt to rediscover the struggles of her female ancestors,
Caperna’s book is significantly directed not towards Lazio – the region of Italy where her
family comes from – but towards Sicily, the island which, throughout several literary and
cinematic representations, has come to represent the quintessential land of origin for
Italian-America:  this choice writes off possible digressions into problems of class and
gender  that  go  hand  in  hand  with  the  drama  of  migration  and  testifies  to  the
“oversimplified approach of a highly complicated issue” (96).
7 The third and last section deals with two male writers, Stratis Haviaras, with When The
Tree Sings (1979), and Tony Ardizzone, with the celebrated In The Garden of Papa Santuzzu
(1999). The novels are analysed through the lens of storytelling as a way to explore “the
subaltern’s battles for survival and freedom” (101), - occurring at the time of the Nazi
occupation  of  Greece  during  WWII  in  the  first  case,  and  covering  the  transatlantic
struggles of  Sicilian workingmen between the late 19th and early 20 th century in the
second. Both works weave elements from folk culture into the narrative fabric, giving
authors “the ability to glide through the strict conventions set by mainstream culture”
(147-8) as a “source of sustenance and hope” (106), but also as a way to construct the
stories from the bottom up. Thus, the marginal stories of the underclasses are put in the
Theodora Patrona, Return Narratives. Ethnic Space in Late-Twentieth-Century G...
European journal of American studies , Reviews 2018-1
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foreground,  particularly  those  of  women  who,  in  their  struggle  for  freedom,  defied
traditional roles. Readers, in this case, are challenged to confront “alternative histories”
by those who had been silenced by history for their lack of discursive power. 
8 Extremely well-researched and providing informative context regarding the development
of  both  Italian  American  and  Greek  American  studies,  Patrona’s  framework  offers  a
precious point of entry into a new field, that further research by scholars specialized in
different ethnic traditions will hopefully enrich and complicate. 
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Theodora Patrona, Return Narratives. Ethnic Space in Late-Twentieth-Century Greek American and Italian American Literature

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