{"product_id":"this-way-back-9781949199666","title":"This Way Back","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003e\"Winning and contemplative.\" --\u003cem\u003eKirkus Reviews\u003c\/em\u003e (starred review) \u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eGoing back to her ancestral homeland, a Greek American girl discovers she is a lesbian in love with God, so her questions about home and belonging will not be easily answered.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003eThis Way Back \u003c\/em\u003edramatizes a childhood split between Queens, New York, and Cyprus, an island nation with a long colonial history and a culture to which Joanna Eleftheriou could never quite adjust. The book avows a Greek-Cypriot-American lesbian's existence by documenting its scenes: reenacting an 1829 mass suicide by jumping off a school stage onto gym mats at St. Nicholas, harvesting carobs on ancestral land, purchasing UNESCO-protected lace, marching in the island's first gay pride parade, visiting Cyprus's occupied north against a dying father's wish, and pruning geraniums, cypress trees, and jasmine after her father grew too weak to lift the shears. While the author's life binds the essays in \u003cem\u003eThis Way Back \u003c\/em\u003einto what reads like a memoir, the book questions memoir's conventional boundaries between the individual and her community, and between political and personal loss, the human and the environment, and the living and the dead.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eBinding Type:\u003c\/b\u003e Paperback\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003ePublisher:\u003c\/b\u003e West Virginia University Press\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003ePublished:\u003c\/b\u003e 10\/01\/2020\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eISBN:\u003c\/b\u003e 9781949199666\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003ePages:\u003c\/b\u003e 264\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eWeight:\u003c\/b\u003e 0.70lbs\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eSize:\u003c\/b\u003e 7.90h x 4.90w x 0.80d","brand":"Joanna Eleftheriou","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":36672785088668,"sku":"9781949199666","price":20.39,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0473\/0804\/6492\/products\/img_589eb762-f2fd-4282-8894-c7d2c4148f72.jpg?v=1603928380","url":"https:\/\/pastforward.org\/products\/this-way-back-9781949199666","provider":"Past Forward","version":"1.0","type":"link"}