A Song by the Aegean Sea is a song for the unsung heroes of the coast of Izmir, Turkey, or Smyrna, that cosmopolitan city through the different ages. The book celebrates the underbelly of the city; the gypsies selling flowers, the roving musicians, the mussel-sellers, and the protestors. The elements of the city's coastline are also merged with the characters in an impressionistic, yet surreal canvas from a stranger's point of view. The traveler, i.e., the poet, or the singer of the Aegean song yearns to become part of the scene.