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Summary: the power of truth
Review: a true story! it also functions as a novel.
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Summary: A beautifully written true story of courage and survival
Review: Thea Halo has written a much needed history of atrocities under the Turkish government, as well as the story of her gentle mother's love and courage. Thank you, Thea Halo, for enlightening the world as to those dreadful years under Turkish rule. I highly recommend this book.
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Summary: An incredible story , brilliantly written
Review: The Jacket cover of this book discribes Thea Halo as a "writer and painter who has won awards for her poetry and essays". Indeed Thea writes with great poetic prose, my favortie example of this is this paragraph early in the book, "A roster crowed and then another and another rooster answered thier call. A donkey brayed. Another cow mooed the distant hills, the myaid birds chirped and sang and sprang from twig to twig to praise the dawning until the whole valley and surrounding hills were alive with the music of donkeys and cows and birds and red-plumed roosters staking their claims. Like a hunting party thrashing the ridges to scare the sun from it's hiding, their riotous vioces reached a crescendo worthy of a sunrise." The first few chapters of this book are deceptively tame. It is only in later chapters that the reader discovers that details in the first few chapters are really emotional land minds laid deep in the readers mind and Thea explodes them with devestating impact, as she and her family are forced on a long death march that in terms of brutality rival the Batton Death march or the Khmer Rouge evacuation of Phnom penh. Aside from the great writting, and the story it's self, One of the things I liked about this book is that unlike "First they killed my Father" A great book by Loung Ung, and "When Broken Glass Floats" by Chanthy Him (See my other reviews). This book does not end with Thea Halo's escape from the genocide or even with her arrival in the United States. In "Not Even My Name" we follow Thea through out her adult life and can see how she adjusted to her new life and how her experiences effected her even into old age. Another important aspect of this book is the history involed, must people (myself included until I read this book) have never heard of the Pontic Greeks, and are at best only vaguely familiar with the Armenian and assyrians and the genocide they experienced. This book is a great read and would make a great movie.
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Summary: Not even a chance of a low rating!
Review: As an Assyrian-Chaldean who knows his history, I can say that this book is a very accurate depiction of history. It is beautifully written, and I have already recommended it to my Armenian friends, and well, just about everyone including you.
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Summary: A universal story "writ large"
Review: "Not Even My Name" is an extraordinarily powerful book that forced me to understand the Pontic, Assyrian, and Armenian genocides it describes in individual, human terms. After all, it's much easier to distance oneself from a holocaust than from the individuals who are its victims. In addition, the book has provided me with an important analog to the history of my own family, Greek Jews, many of whom suffered their own holocaust. I intend to read this book with one of my classes, not only because it is a fine piece of literature, but also because it will remind us in a very compelling way how foolish it is to try to prove that one holocaust was bigger or more important than another. We all suffer from the "It's my dead rat" syndrome, a foolishness this book exposes fearlessly. Equally important, the structure of the book, framed by a double odyssey and complex exodus, provides the experiences of the author, Thea Halo, and her mother, Sano, nee Themia, with just the right context to make the journey very worthwhile for the reader as well as for its two main characters. Halo's descriptions are beautifully drawn, and her inferences are understated, which is what makes them so powerful. This is a universal story "writ large" and passionately. It took me almost no time to see that it is also my story, placed in a different context, but one that I could recognize easily, in small ways as well as large. How fascinating, for instance, to discover that the Pontic Christians celebrated Easter with egg-breaking contests almost identical to the Greek-Jewish tradition during the Passover Seders. The book is extremely well written and incredibly moving. I broke down and wept quite often as it drew me into the lives, the joys and tragedies, the incredible bravery of people we shamefully know almost nothing about; yet the cause of my tears was never the result of mere sentimentality or sensationalism. The bare facts themselves, powerfully recounted, are enough to make any reader weep for "Man's inhumanity to man," even as Sano, a character with her own imperfections, whose very name has been obliterated, triumphs over adversity, little by little; and reminds us that we can overcome even senseless acts of mass violence and our own dark side by following the example she sets of unending kindnesses and care for the "Family of People."
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Summary: Tragedy brought to light
Review: When I first heard that this book was out, I couldn't believe that it was published. I was with Sano and Thea as they revisited Turkey and went into the past. It is a must read for all people, not just Armenians, Greeks, and Assyrians to read. I was also surprised that Assyrians were mentioned at all, because many people are not aware of their genocide at that time
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Summary: A beautifully written book about the horrors of genocide
Review: A must-read for all those interested in the history of modern Turkey. The genocide inflicted against the Christian inhabitants of Turkey -- Greeks, Assyrians and Armenians -- have had long-term ramifications that exist to this day. Reading Thea's story of her courageous mother reminded me of similar experiences that my Assyrian grandmothers and Armenian mother-in-law endured. Many thanks to Thea Halo for sharing her mother Sano's story of survival and providing the rest of the world with a true account of life under Ataturk.
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Summary: Man's Inhumanity to Man. A True Story
Review: This is a story so vividly told I felt I was there with Sano as she played in the fields in the country she called home. Her daughter Thea Halo captured the love she shared with her loving family, then heartbreak & sorrow that followed. Sano, by the grace of God, lived through the devastation and death of her family on The Death March out of Turkey. Her survival, being sold into marriage and her journey to America is so beautifully written it was difficult to put this book down. It was hard to hold back tears when you think of how Sano, her family and all the people of this land suffered so needlessly. Thea Halo should feel so proud that she wrote a book that needed to be written, and a story that needed to be told so that Pontic Greeks, Assyrians, and Armenians as well as other nationalties will finally learn what happened to their ancestors. Sano was brave enough to recall this part of her life for her daughter to put in writing. This is truly an unforgettable account of history. A splendid narrative so well written.
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Summary: How does one survive the loss of everything one holds dear?
Review: When I see the reader comments and e-mail Not Even My Name has generated, I am truly humbled. People tell me they dream of their own mothers after reading it; or they discover their own heritage for the first time, or they become interested in their own heritage for the first time. Readers of Not Even My Name have ranged from Pontic Greeks, Armenians and Assyrians who share a history, to western, middle, and southern Americans; from New Yorkers, as urban as it gets, to rural dwellers far removed from things foreign. Yet one thread always comes home to me. Everyone gets it, that it's not just my mother's story, with its rich history and detail of her ancient way of life high in the Pontic Mountains of Turkey near the Black, the death march that stripped her everyone and everything she had ever held dear, and then her life in America. It's also the story of the human will and ability to survive. Not Even My Name is told through the eyes of my mother, who by the age of 10 lost mother, father, siblings, and homeland, and finally even her name. She was treated as a slave by a woman who promised to care for her, and sold into marriage at the tender age of fifteen to a man who was three times her age. He brought her to America as a child bride in 1925 where she raised ten children in New York City. But it's the story of every child, every adult, who has struggled against the greatest of odds to retain the only things that truly belong to us; our humanity, our spirit, and our ability to love and nurture. Thank you all for your fine comments about Not Even My Name, and for your continued support. It is our great wish that my mother's memoir, Not Even My Name, will help people know the rich heritage and tragic fate of the historic Christians of Turkey: the Pontic Greeks, Assyrians and Armenians. And in the simple act of knowing and acknowledging their stories, people everywhere will help these people grieve.
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Summary: A remarkable story, a sad history, a grave injustice
Review: Sometimes you encounter a book by happenstance. This is one of them. I read it in one sitting - it held me that well. It is a humble reminder that the scenes played out in Kosovo last year were but a recurring nightmare in the history of humanity - unfortunately, there was no mass media present in the early parts of the 20th century to record the maltreatment of the Pontians, Armenians, and other minorities in Turkey. All we have is Sano, and others like her. It is especially poignant in that Turkey is now moving closer towards Europe, and even has thawed relations somewhat with some of its more traditional enemies, like Greece. However, there are still unresolved issues, like Cyprus, and the fact that modern Turkey has not come to grips with its past history. Unfortunately, Turkey is not alone in this. Even though I have read this book only once, I feel like I know Sano Halo personally - and that there is a lot that she still has to tell us.
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