Aristo's Family

I wondered whether I could chance following the author reviews on Aristo's Family, being interested in the idea of the teenage Pavlov's consuming need to belong to a dad, Aristo, who had become so obsessed with tracing his family that he had almost totally distanced his son from him. The descriptions of the Troodos mountains in Cyprus and the ancestor masks lining the walls of Aristo's museum home in Paphos revealed the kind of home that Aristo's son had to grow up in, which must have been very disturbing for him. When this is added to the boy's loneliness, while his father devoted his time to excavating human remains, which he believed to be those of his family killed in the Turkish invasion of Cyprus in 1974, the book gives an intriguing window into a dysfunctional relationship between father and son which built towards a moving ending. P.L. Moore

I'm not sure if this book would make me want to go to Cyprus but it would make me want to go on the time travel it takes to ancient Cyprus. It's not that the settings weren't convincing. They're well researched and must have something to do with the author being part Cypriot himself. But the way the teenage Pavlos - born of an English mother and having to adapt to the Cyprus of his eccentric dad's private Paphos museum - had to struggle to feel he belonged in his father's affections was really well done. It's almost as if, With Pavlos, I wanted to escape altogether from the island. Otherwise good on character - Spiropoulos the educational inspector for home tuition from Nicosia and Stefanos the ancient Greek with a scythe and a mission to make Pavlos 'clean' are both unforgettable - especially when the only thing that has made Pavlos 'dirty' in their ancient minds is the tender relationship the teenager develops for Katherine, a beautiful archaeologist colleague of her father's at the museum who, at 45 years to his 16, has more than popcorn with him. Penny D - London

Though it took a while to get used to the island setting of Cyprus, moving between modern and ancient Greeks, I was moved by the relationship - or absence of any normal relationship - between the teenage Pavlos and his very strange archaeologist father, Aristo. The father is totally preoccupied with his clinging to the idea that he has another 'family' going back centuries if not millennia and yet, in a way, a family still alive and able to do things, perhaps unseen but with an unusual power of good or evil... Yes, the plot leads us up through the winding mountain roads of the Troodos mountains at night, between looming cedars and Aleppo pines, until we reach a remote cottage where Aristo's ancient 'family' seem still to inhabit but, strangely, for me it wasn't the atmosphere that made me want to read on as much as the remoteness between the teenager and his father. The boy longs to get closer to his strange father, who even tries to hypnotise him into a belief in another 'family', after Aristo's modern family were all believed burnt beyond recognition during the Turkish invasion of Northern Cyprus in 1974, while for his part the father, creepiness incarnate, wants to begin to understand his son's emotional needs. The total loneliness of a son in his father's presence and vice versa is handled nothing short of brilliantly. When the charming and sympathetic archaeologist friend of Aristo's, Katherine, meets up with the much younger son Pavlos, the tenderness [and a good measure of hanky panky] between the older woman and the teenager has to make this one a roller coaster if you fancy a tear-jerker a lá Grecque. Booklover32