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Sept. 12, 2005
BOOK REVIEW: ‘Old Gloves’ Spares the Words, Delivers Vivid Portrayal of Last
Century’s Atrocities
Reviewed By David M. Kinchen
Huntington News Network Book Critic
Hinton, WV (HNN) – Coming across four pairs of old gloves that her mother gave
her in preparation for yet another trip, Alicia in Beatriz Badikian Gartler’s
“Old Gloves: A 20th Century Saga” (Chicago: Fractal Edge Press, 160 pages, $15;
available by order at bookstores or from Amazon.com) reflects about her
tumultuous life so far – she’s still in her 20s – and the even more tumultuous
life of her father, Greg and her mother, Libby as Greg and Libby leave Chicago
in 1978 to return to Greece.
Alicia is tired of moving and has found a new life in the very cosmopolitan city
by the lake. She was born in Argentina in 1952, following the 1951 emigration of
Greg – then known as Grigoris -- and Libby – called Elefteria (Greek for
“liberty”) from Greece to Buenos Aires.
In Argentina, the Armenian refugee Grigoris – he was Krikor in Turkey when he
and his family endured a forced march to be evacuated along with hundreds of
thousands of other Greeks and Armenians in one of the 20th Century’s many ethnic
removals – becomes Gregorio and his wife becomes Libertadad – Spanish for
“liberty.”
Alicia is Greek and Armenian and Argentinean and now she’s a Chicagoan in a city
that has become a refuge for many nationalities. Gartler’s novel reads like a
memoir and I suspect there’s more than a little of the author in the character
of Alicia. Beatriz Badikian Gartler was born in Argentina and has taught
literature at a number of Chicago universities, including Roosevelt University,
University of Illinois – Chicago and DePaul University.
I can relate to Alicia’s – and Gartler’s -- love of Chicago: Both of my parents
were first generation Chicagoans whose parents were ethnic refugees from
different parts of the Russian Empire. Chicago is part of my DNA and was my
first love among big cities, my home for several years after college and a place
I return to annually for cultural fill ups. Even as I write this, I’m preparing
for my annual train journey to Chicago.
Alicia’s dad is a difficult person to live with, a man who finds brief
satisfaction in a job, only to become restless, looking for another country to
explore. He endures life in German-occupied Greece in World War II, always
fearing that his communist leanings will result in his capture by the Germans
and their right-wing Greek collaborators.
Krikor-Gregoris wants to go to Mexico, a favored destination of European
communists, but the family can’t get permission, so they immigrate to Argentina,
a relatively sparsely populated nation that has attracted Jews, Armenians and
especially Italians. Alicia is happy in Argentina, with a circle of girlfriends
and is mortified at the thought of being uprooted to move to the U.S. Restless
Greg tries New York City and the Los Angeles area before finally settling in
Chicago.
The author’s forte is crafting vivid portraits of her characters in sparse but
expressive language. Alicia is thwarted in her desire to study literature in
Argentina. Her increasingly bitter father wants her to work to add to the meager
income of the struggling family.
Beatriz Badikian Gartler follows in the steps of Joseph Conrad and Vladimir
Nabokov, expressive prose stylists for whom English was a second language.
Flashbacks to 1907 recount the death marches of ethnic Greeks and Armenians at
the hands of the Ottoman Turks; especially poignant is the journey Alicia’s
maternal grandmother Evgenia and her husband Odysseas from interior Turkey to
the evacuation point on the coast. Gartler vividly describes the horror of the
march, which prefigured marches of Jews by Nazis during World War II.
Similarly Greg, then called Krikor, undergoes similar horrors in 1922 when his
father Artin is arrested and the family endures a death march. The atrocities
committed by the Turks against the Armenians are well documented, but most
people don’t realize that ethnic Greeks living in what is now Turkey were
subjected to what later generations would call “ethnic cleansing.”
“Old Gloves” displays a remarkable range of emotions for such a short book.
By turns it’s humorous and horrifying, but there’s always hope that better
things are on the horizon. I look forward to the continuing saga of Alicia in
the Windy City.
Publisher’s web site: www.fractaledgepress.com
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