The Isle of Kheria
SKU:
1981
$25.00
$25.00
per item
Clothbound, sewn, jacketed, 320 pages, 5 x 8", 2012, 0-929701-98-1
Winner: 2013 Independent Publishers Silver IPPY for Literary Fiction
Already crazed at the loss of his wife, Joel Brewster is now living a reclusive life on a farm commune in Canada when he learns of the passing of his oldest friend, Aidan Allard. Compelled to journey to the Greek island, Khería, from which Aidan swam off into a storm and drowned, Joel seeks to quell his doubts about their friendship: haunted by the possible motivations of Aidan's death, he yearns for release from grief and guilt by this pilgrimmage of atonement.
The Isle of Kheria traces their lives in Joel’s dream-world encounters with spirits from his past. Hovering above all is the taunting, inaccessible islet, Khímaera, Aidan’s destination when he drowned—a fateful monster of myth, a chimeric illusion.
The intertwined though often ambivalent lives of these two friends race through much of the twentieth century, from childhoods in England and New England to frontline soldiering in World War II; from living in Greece during its civil war to years in futile US government service, and ultimately into rebellion while seeking new lives in Italy, England, the US and Canada. Most poignant are their abject failures in their ability to love — until, in the end, finding its profound reward.
These are fateful, Odyssean stories, and their resolutions evolve from a despairing dream-world into a reality rediscovered. They are written in Cabot's unique prose style, which was acclaimed in his earlier novels, The Joshua Tree and That Sweetest WIne.
For a sample of the text, see the link below.
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"The Isle of Khería covers a lot of time and a lot of geography. The author, Robert Cabot, graduated from Harvard and Yale, served in World War II and later in U.S. government service, then traveled the world as a critic of U.S. policy in Europe and especially Vietnam. Eventually he worked as organizer of a commune in British Columbia and lives now on Whidbey Island. While The Isle of Khería isn't a memoir, it does pack the savor of firsthand experience into its global narrative.
"The titular fictional island is named for the Greek word for 'candle,' and another fictional island that figures prominently in this tale of yearning is Khimaera, from the Greek word that gives us 'chimera,' which means something deeply desired but forever out of reach. On these islands, and in Athens and Rome, in World War II combat in France and Germany, and coast to coast in the United States, two men, Joel and Aidan, struggle, sometimes together but often separately, to create a world that is more just and more open to the complexities of the human heart.
"For all its vivid scenery, the story is largely interior, tracing Joel and Aidan's lifelong emotional bond. Through decades of wives, lovers and children, each remains the other's lodestar. As various characters take turns adding their perspectives, we come back over and over to Joel's memories of Aidan: 'And the you of your Aegean idyll in the arms of your Dimitra. The you my companion of Pindos mountain adventures. The dancing you, the laughing you.' And in close counterpoint come Aidan's responses: 'Always the flood of stories, but, Joel, they are more than memory should have to bear.'
"These living, passionate voices are candles that flicker against the gathering darkness; they illuminate the distant outline of an unreachable island where another life is possible, one safe, as Aidan puts it, from 'A missile race, pre-emptive strike, fire storms and nuclear winter . . . . Escalating populations, pollution, corruptions, severe depletions, fifty wars at once.' And a life open, at last, to love." — Richard Wakefield, Seattle Times
"When those closest to you in life leave it forever, it can be difficult to shoulder the burden. The Isle of Kheria is a novel chronicling the burden of Joel Brewster, mourning the loss of his wife and suspecting that his closest friend chose suicide by drowning. Looking for grace and something that matters in his life, Joel goes to Kheria and finds much change in the matter. The Isle of Kheria is a strong addition to general fiction collections." — Midwest Book Review
"Some readers may shy away from Robert Cabot’s choppy, cursory, incomplete writing style, but I recommend leaping onto its back. Ride unsaddled by conventional dialogue and creaking exposition! Gallop away, greedy for each lyrical phrase and evocative scene within its pages. See, smell, feel – no, revel in the exhilaration that is The Isle of Kheria – a tribute to a friendship spanning most of the twentieth century, from World War II and Vietnam to the seven-year Junta in Greece and the counterculture of the sixties and later. The friendship between staid Joel Brewster and flamboyant Aidan Allard, notable mostly for awkward reunions after long separations, begins in college. It ends with Joel visiting Aidan’s grave on a barren hillside surrounded by “dry stalks of asphodel – kheria, candles to the dead, the islanders say.” At the grave, Joel is visited by the shades of Aidan and the women they have known – mothers, wives, daughters – who bare their souls, bear witness to the secrets they withheld from each other, the opportunities they missed. A poignant touch: photos of the two tokens that symbolize Joel’s opposing loves serve as motifs to preface the three partitions of The Isle of Kheria. An enthralling read." — Historical Novels Review
"Robert Cabot’s masterful The Isle of Khería interrogates the past, that mysterious land, which always beckons in the distance. Can we ever really know it, or the people who come in and out of our lives? Is it only after we lose someone that we finally, perhaps too late, consider that person's character and story? Reminiscent of Fowles' The Magus, Davies' The Manticore, and Kazantzakis' Zorba, Cabot weaves narratives of Greece’s past and present with the gossamer threads of his prose. His descriptions of the natural world are spellbinding—the piping of the goatherd, the spittle bugs on the golden rod—and one of the joys of reading this book." —Eric Utne, Founder, Utne Reader
"The Isle of Kheria transmutes the leaden horrors of the 20th century into elegiac gold dust. I'm left with that hushed fragile feeling that comes from stirring up rarely experienced emotions. A story crafted of myriad glimpses of an intimate world, poetic literary pointillism. A masterpiece." — Robert Fuller, former president Oberlin College, best-selling author of Somebodies and Nobodies
"In 1989 Robert Cabot heard the terrible news that his best friend, the writer and Hellenophile Kevin Andrews had drowned in wild seas off a remote Greek Island. More than two decades after this tragedy Cabot has with rich, honest prose conjured up an extraordinary book that merges biography, legend and myth to recreate and continue loves, lives and conversations. A host of characters, real and imaginary join in the Homeric discourse as Cabot leads us a merry dance from idyllic childhood to the horrors and inanities of war, from the forgotten battles of the Aleutian islands campaign to Northern Italy, the Ardennes and the crossing of the Rhine. Suddenly we are in peacetime and the mysteries of sexuality, delicately exploring love and dreams in prose as stunning as the Aegean light. We tumble through the cold war, marriage, children and separation, Vietnam, the colonels in Greece, the counterculture, the madness of consumption and the search for material wealth. Traversing this turbulant landscape we are comforted by the tenderness of love of one man for another until finally there is peace, a resolution of grief, and the glimpse of a hopeful future. —Roger Jinkinson , author of American Ikaros: The Search for Kevin Andrews
"Cabot’s latest (after That Sweetest Wine) follows the decades-long peregrinations of Joel Brewster and Aidan Allard through college, the battlefields of WWII, the Greek civil war, memory, hopes, and the fraught landscape of the heart. Still reeling from his wife’s death, Joel—now living in Canada—hears of Aidan’s tragic drowning off the coast of his adopted home of Khería in the Aegean Sea and decides to travel there to uncover the truth behind his death. During his journey, the history of their relationship is told through the points of view of characters living and dead, making for a rich—though often baffling—portrait of a complicated friendship."— Publishers Weekly
"The titular fictional island is named for the Greek word for 'candle,' and another fictional island that figures prominently in this tale of yearning is Khimaera, from the Greek word that gives us 'chimera,' which means something deeply desired but forever out of reach. On these islands, and in Athens and Rome, in World War II combat in France and Germany, and coast to coast in the United States, two men, Joel and Aidan, struggle, sometimes together but often separately, to create a world that is more just and more open to the complexities of the human heart.
"For all its vivid scenery, the story is largely interior, tracing Joel and Aidan's lifelong emotional bond. Through decades of wives, lovers and children, each remains the other's lodestar. As various characters take turns adding their perspectives, we come back over and over to Joel's memories of Aidan: 'And the you of your Aegean idyll in the arms of your Dimitra. The you my companion of Pindos mountain adventures. The dancing you, the laughing you.' And in close counterpoint come Aidan's responses: 'Always the flood of stories, but, Joel, they are more than memory should have to bear.'
"These living, passionate voices are candles that flicker against the gathering darkness; they illuminate the distant outline of an unreachable island where another life is possible, one safe, as Aidan puts it, from 'A missile race, pre-emptive strike, fire storms and nuclear winter . . . . Escalating populations, pollution, corruptions, severe depletions, fifty wars at once.' And a life open, at last, to love." — Richard Wakefield, Seattle Times
"When those closest to you in life leave it forever, it can be difficult to shoulder the burden. The Isle of Kheria is a novel chronicling the burden of Joel Brewster, mourning the loss of his wife and suspecting that his closest friend chose suicide by drowning. Looking for grace and something that matters in his life, Joel goes to Kheria and finds much change in the matter. The Isle of Kheria is a strong addition to general fiction collections." — Midwest Book Review
"Some readers may shy away from Robert Cabot’s choppy, cursory, incomplete writing style, but I recommend leaping onto its back. Ride unsaddled by conventional dialogue and creaking exposition! Gallop away, greedy for each lyrical phrase and evocative scene within its pages. See, smell, feel – no, revel in the exhilaration that is The Isle of Kheria – a tribute to a friendship spanning most of the twentieth century, from World War II and Vietnam to the seven-year Junta in Greece and the counterculture of the sixties and later. The friendship between staid Joel Brewster and flamboyant Aidan Allard, notable mostly for awkward reunions after long separations, begins in college. It ends with Joel visiting Aidan’s grave on a barren hillside surrounded by “dry stalks of asphodel – kheria, candles to the dead, the islanders say.” At the grave, Joel is visited by the shades of Aidan and the women they have known – mothers, wives, daughters – who bare their souls, bear witness to the secrets they withheld from each other, the opportunities they missed. A poignant touch: photos of the two tokens that symbolize Joel’s opposing loves serve as motifs to preface the three partitions of The Isle of Kheria. An enthralling read." — Historical Novels Review
"Robert Cabot’s masterful The Isle of Khería interrogates the past, that mysterious land, which always beckons in the distance. Can we ever really know it, or the people who come in and out of our lives? Is it only after we lose someone that we finally, perhaps too late, consider that person's character and story? Reminiscent of Fowles' The Magus, Davies' The Manticore, and Kazantzakis' Zorba, Cabot weaves narratives of Greece’s past and present with the gossamer threads of his prose. His descriptions of the natural world are spellbinding—the piping of the goatherd, the spittle bugs on the golden rod—and one of the joys of reading this book." —Eric Utne, Founder, Utne Reader
"The Isle of Kheria transmutes the leaden horrors of the 20th century into elegiac gold dust. I'm left with that hushed fragile feeling that comes from stirring up rarely experienced emotions. A story crafted of myriad glimpses of an intimate world, poetic literary pointillism. A masterpiece." — Robert Fuller, former president Oberlin College, best-selling author of Somebodies and Nobodies
"In 1989 Robert Cabot heard the terrible news that his best friend, the writer and Hellenophile Kevin Andrews had drowned in wild seas off a remote Greek Island. More than two decades after this tragedy Cabot has with rich, honest prose conjured up an extraordinary book that merges biography, legend and myth to recreate and continue loves, lives and conversations. A host of characters, real and imaginary join in the Homeric discourse as Cabot leads us a merry dance from idyllic childhood to the horrors and inanities of war, from the forgotten battles of the Aleutian islands campaign to Northern Italy, the Ardennes and the crossing of the Rhine. Suddenly we are in peacetime and the mysteries of sexuality, delicately exploring love and dreams in prose as stunning as the Aegean light. We tumble through the cold war, marriage, children and separation, Vietnam, the colonels in Greece, the counterculture, the madness of consumption and the search for material wealth. Traversing this turbulant landscape we are comforted by the tenderness of love of one man for another until finally there is peace, a resolution of grief, and the glimpse of a hopeful future. —Roger Jinkinson , author of American Ikaros: The Search for Kevin Andrews
"Cabot’s latest (after That Sweetest Wine) follows the decades-long peregrinations of Joel Brewster and Aidan Allard through college, the battlefields of WWII, the Greek civil war, memory, hopes, and the fraught landscape of the heart. Still reeling from his wife’s death, Joel—now living in Canada—hears of Aidan’s tragic drowning off the coast of his adopted home of Khería in the Aegean Sea and decides to travel there to uncover the truth behind his death. During his journey, the history of their relationship is told through the points of view of characters living and dead, making for a rich—though often baffling—portrait of a complicated friendship."— Publishers Weekly