Greece, 1981–1989. The Populist Decade (review)

154 Reviews strikes up a relationship with post-World War II immigrants. He becomes especially fond of one, Thrasimovoulos, whom he dubs Tracey, a name that sticks, but he gets into a feud with another, Ernie Peperonis, who cheats him in a business deal. The story comes to its climax when Becky, Dean's granddaughter , becomes engaged to Tracey's son. Dean is delighted as Becky, the last of his grandchildren to marry, is also the first to marry a Greek, and the son of a friend at that! Plans for the wedding, which Dean will pay for, grow ever more elaborate. Dean and his wife see the event as a kind of emblematic cultural moment in which the last surviving members of the Great Migration will mingle with their children, grandchildren, and great grandchildren at a gala leavened by the presence of all the succeeding immigrant generations. The event is indeed glorious, but at the wedding banquet Dean's joy turns to rage when he spots Ernie Peperonis. Who invited this creature? Can it be that Tracey values Ernie's friendship even more than Dean's? Have they maintained a secret immigrant brotherhood behind his back all these years? His wounded pride propels Dean to take an action that will completely unravel his dream of uniting all the generations and immigration waves. He inflicts deep new wounds that will make future relationships more complex and uglier than ever before. Each of the stories in Small Bird, Tell Me has the intricate plotting and emotional nuances found in "The Letter Writer" and "A Great Day." Each probes deeply into individual destiny and values but always within the wider cultural context of what is involved in trying to be Greek in America. With this slim volume, Helen Papanikolas has made a powerful contribution to the canon of genuinely Greek-American literature. Dan Georgakas Queens College, CUNY Richard Clogg, editor, Greece, 1981-1989. The Populist Decade. New York: St. Martin's Press. 1993. Pp. 194. $59.95. Confronted with still another book on Greece under the rule of PASOK, the obvious question is: What is new in this work, which resembles several others on the same topic? Is this yet another collection of essays with little cohesion? My answer is that what distinguishes this book is its superb timing, its almost uniform high scholarly quality, and its accessibility to the general reader. It was written at a time when PASOK had been ousted from power and when one could therefore survey die entire process of Andreas Papandreou's rise and fall. It has now been published at a time when PASOK is back in power—one hopes that it will be read with that in mind. If studied in that light, it will allow the reader to see today's PASOK performance in a déjà vu perspective. Those who meet the PASOK phenomenon here for the first time, stripped of its socialist rhetoric, will feel cold shivers and perhaps understand better what is going on now in Greece. Reviews 155 Nothing seems to have changed. PASOK claims that it has learned from experience and has mended its ways. I am not convinced. Letting the first decade of PASOK authoritarianism pass before my eyes through the pages of this book, I find too many similarities between then and now. This is a pessimistic volume in many ways even though one or two contributors find reason for some vague optimism. But they wrote when Néa Dhimokratia was back in power. We can now examine the return of PASOK after that intermezzo. As already pointed out, the essays in the present collection, the result of a conference held in London in March 1990, are generally of a high quality and easy to read. One that requires more concentration from the reader is P. Nikiforos Diamandouros's analysis of the two conflicting cultures in Greece—what he terms the "underdog" culture and the "modernizing" one. It is not possible in this short review to discuss the potential utility of these terms. Suffice it to say that although his essay sometimes is heavily theoretical, the reader comes away with many new insights. To me the...