A house in Corfu

From Barnes & Noble

The Barnes & Noble Review
At the dawn of 1960s a vacationing English couple spied a choice bit of real estate from the deck of their cruise ship and wondered: Why shouldn't they transplant themselves and their family from U.K. drizzle to Greek sun? A House in Corfu is their daughter's memoir of that unsettled time of settling anew.

To tell the story of the house they built -- Rovinia, named after the land it sits upon -- Emma Tennant relies on her deepening connection to Corfu and its community. The massive undertaking of homebuilding in a foreign language, as it were, is replete with the expected unexpected, all recounted with wry hindsight. But the home's emerging physical structure is also a metaphor for the family's assimilation into the life of the island. Through christenings and military coups, funerals and "For Rent" signs, Tennant reveals the unforgettable human players in the domestic drama necessary to hang stone flesh upon her parents' dream.

Tennant also retains her keen impressions as an exuberant xenoi (or "outsider") -- a perpetually refreshing state, replacing the workaday with a holiday outlook upon each new return to the island. From this perspective, we too welcome the sea breeze on the terrace at sunset, cool drink in hand, impatient for Maria the cook's legendary casseroles, made with the first pressings from Rovinia's own olives. Gustatory pleasure is seldom as vivid and immediate as presented here.

Tennant is honest enough to acknowledge the tension of her position as a "resident tourist." The frangible, one-step-ahead-of-the-crowd nature of the paradise her family seems to have found has in some ways foreshadowed the inevitable modern march of tourism.

To that end, though, A House in Corfu is both the poison and the antidote: Reading it will make you yearn for life as it is lived at Rovinia, and rereading it will make staying put bearable -- but only just. (Janet Dudley)

Publishers Weekly

Tennant, a London-based author (Sylvia and Ted), offers a delightful memoir of the years she spent visiting her parents' home on the Greek island of Corfu. During a vacation, Tennant's parents, then in late middle-age, became captivated by a remote area on the West Coast of the island. They bought a parcel of land above the bay where Odysseus is said to have been shipwrecked and built Rovinia, a house inaccessible by road; during the winters, rough waters made it impossible to reach the nearest harbor by boat. But isolation was precisely what her mother and father craved. Originally Rovinia was conceived as a vacation home, but in 1965, Tennant's parents gave up their London home and moved to Corfu permanently. Tennant details the problems with the actual construction of the house and the difficulties in securing an adequate water supply. As a frequent visitor, Tennant had her own room, and she came to know the island intimately. She eloquently renders the stark beauty of the landscape, the seductive, treacherous sea, the delicious cuisine (the family employed a local cook) and her family's friendships with local residents whose customs the newcomers came to understand and respect. Steeped in myth, Corfu remained virtually untouched for generations. On later visits, Tennant observed the changes wrought by the Greek military coup and increased tourism. Tennant's father died on Corfu in 1983, but Rovinia is still a beloved refuge for family members. This account of an alternative lifestyle undertaken before modern pop culture had reached all corners of the earth will appeal to travelers, expatriates and their admirers. Photos not seen by PW. (Feb. 1) Copyright 2001 Cahners BusinessInformation.

Library Journal

How the popular novelist's parents built a house in Rovinia, above the bay in Corfu where Ulysses was reputedly shipwrecked. Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information.

Kirkus Reviews

A Mediterranean idyll from a British novelist (Sylvia and Ted, 2001, etc.) whose parents took up residence on a Greek island in the mid-1960s.