About Christos
I am not as old as I am young. I have been an ad man, a brand man, a post-hole digger and a son of a Greek grocer; an antique merchant, a novelist, a journalist, a poet who dreams that the past comes to life in the present, and that the dead can return on the wind. I have traveled the Covid years circumnavigating African nations by cooking the spices of their exotic foods. As a student of cosmology, I know I will never travel through the universe in a spaceship but there is a wormhole through El Greco’s night sky that races toward that opening of my imagination.
Being the son of Greek parents meant that I was born with all the roots of wonderment about the world they came from. But it took a lengthy visit to Greece and their island of Chios to let me feel their stories and bring them back to life. I was used to a life in the present, but there I could feel a life from the past. It woke me every morning with the braying of a donkey trying to pull the sun out of the Aegean. I could see how the old yiayias and papos fulfilled important family roles. I could smell the fruits in the orchard, the salt from the sea, and fresh fish being cooked as I slowly walked the streets of my ancestors. I sat beside the rock where Homer taught thousands of years before. And there I learned I did not only want to listen to those Greek stories, I wanted to write about them. My first novel, Digging at the Crossroads of Time, was written from Crete a number of years ago and now I present my new novel, The Woman Left Behind.
Well, you are welcome to join me in the inventive world of Christos Morris.
THE WOMAN LEFT BEHIND
SYNOPSIS
As a boy after dinner, I would lie on the family sofa beside my father and listen to the amazing family stories from the old country. The sofa was the spaceship that opened my imagination through a flight back in time. I believed my father created paintings that allowed me to step inside with wonderment. The voices from some of these stories have come back to life in The Woman Left Behind.
The book is an emotionally gripping novel about a Greek migrant seduced by the illusional wonders of the American dream. Stratis Mizetras promises his wife that he will return to her a successful man. She waits for many years, her life suspended.
Before leaving, Stratis hides a stolen Renaissance El Greco painting that had been passed down through his poor Chios family for generations. Though hidden in the darkness of a Greek island burial crypt, it disappears.
After many years away in the USA, a tortured Stratis still searches for the painting and success that failed to find him in the dreadful climate of early 20th century American bigotry. A damaged Marooko still clings to her seductive dream that he will return but finds life easier by pretending he is dead. After almost three decades, love waits.
My book is now available in paperback and ebook formats on Amazon.
The Blog
I have studied Minoan archaeology, the origins of consciousness, Renaissance and early 20th century art history, cosmology, and I love cooking food from the spicier regions of Africa and Europe. I patented a device to aid corporate insignificance and personal anxiety, and have started a movement to change Australian garage walls and floors into an art form. My first job in Australia was digging post hole with a tractor. I will elaborate on all of these subjects on my blog in coming weeks and months.
The blog will cover writing, thoughts, recipes from foreign lands, artists and art movements, favorite books, movies and poems, social media posts, new book extracts, as well as my favorite books and authors.
Books or Authors
I was thinking about books that had an affect on me, lingered for a while, sometimes a long while. One by one they came back to life like old friends. If you have had similar books in mind, maybe you would like to share some of your favorites, too. Below are some of...
Learning a New Dance
they used to leap around and prance it always was the same old dance they tied their feet onto the floor and moved the way they did before but then They thought about a new romance and maybe learn another dance to sway and swing with something more Then dance the way...
Living and Writing in the Tropics
As a writer now living in the tropics, I sometimes wonder how I ever got here. I often feel something similar while writing a novel or long story, banging on the keys for hours. I begin to imagine myself a kayaker moving fast down a river that shrinks into a creek and...