The Sailor's Wife

by Helen Benedict

A tour de force of storytelling, The Sailor's Wife is a powerful glimpse at an ancient culture, where a modern woman is plunked down in a world totally alien to her. Joyce Perlman, a nave young woman... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1581950241
• ISBN13: 9781581950243
• Release Date: October 2000
• Publisher: Zoland Books
• Length: 294 Pages
• Weight: 1.10 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.1" x 5.8" x 8.6"

Customer Reviews

Sail away....

Telling the tale of young love, irrationality, and brusque decisions is Benedict's forte. Her gift of prose weaves a brilliant portrait of myriad topics. Joyce is a young American searching to find herself, seemingly lost in her own skin, in her own world. Meet Nikos, the stunning Greek sailor. The two meet in a grocery store, where he soon whisks her off as his 18 year old bride, and takes her to his parents on the small Greek Island of Ifestia. Ifestia, [loosely based on Lemnos, according to the author], is an island with quite a history. Constantly at war, it's people are hard, and from another time. Joyce, attempts to fit in and find her niche in Greek peasant society. Benedict's characterizations, descriptions and brilliant prose sails the reader to another time, in a completely enveloping tale. A tale of love, tragedy, life, and its lessons rolled into one, The Sailor's Wife, attempts and succeeds at being a fascinating, thought-provoking read.Enjoy!

An Unexpected Pleasure

It was snowy and cold out and the thought of the warm Greek Isles caused me to grab this book at my local library. I just started reading late last night and hated to put this book down. I am enchanted with Joyce's Greek family and the purpose she finds in hard work and her escape from the "mud" people that are her real family in Florida. I have not yet finished the book but was delighted to look on your reviewer page and discover that I had stumbled on to a jewel.

GREAT WINTER READ

This was a truly enchanting novel, which took me to the place and time Benedict describes. The characters are well drawn, and the plot clips along at a brisk pace. It's an atmospheric novel, a hot novel -- perfect for winter. It will make a great Christmas gift that in terms of heat and romance will more than substitute a yuletide fire.

a beautifully written novel

Benedict's novel evokes the colors and tastes of the Greek Isles, and richly depicts the lives of her characters. It is a wonderful book!

Sexy Tale of Self-Discovery in a Strange Land

The Sailor1s Wife is the story of an American girl who goes to live on a remote island in the Aegean with the parents of a Greek sailor who she met at a Florida supermarket. At first the girl, Joyce, and the sailor, Nikos, can hardly speak to one another except through the language of their mutual desire, but that is enough for them to fall deeply in love and to marry. Once he has brought her home to live with his peasant parents, Joyce soon learns enough Greek to understand that Nikos is not at all the man she though he was when she married him. Continuing his career in the merchant marine, he is hardly ever home, and when he does visit, he treats her as little more than a servant. Joyce is determined to stick out the marriage, however, because she has grown so attached to Nikos1s parents, and because she has come to feel that their almost Biblical existence is vastly more meaningful than her previous life in suburban Miami. Her resolve is sorely tested when she is rescued from an assault by a couple of Greek soldiers by Alex, a handsome, young, British intellectual visiting his Greek family. One of the great strengths of Helen Benedict1s novel is that she makes us understand the difficulty of Joyce1s dilemma by bringing island culture vividly to life, and by showing how all of the major characters were shaped by the ravages of war and dictatorship. This is a sexy, sun-filled, fast-moving coming of age story, but one that never presents Joyce1s personal struggles in isolation form the hard history that, in part, determines them. I read this book in one sitting, sometimes pacing the room to reduce the tension of suspense, other times sinking deep into my chair to savor the satisfactions of this deeply passionate and sexually adventurous young woman, and still other times shaking my head at the sad and even terrifying situations Joyce was thrust into by her simple need to be fully herself. This is a smart, beautifully written tale that has permanently changed the way I see both modern and traditional cultures. I cannot recommend it more highly.