Kathryn Koromilas

Above the line’, a narrator begins a story. At a specific moment in time, a specific fictional character appears and something is about to happen. ‘Below the line’, another narrator begins a different story, a story in notes, footnotes, ‘citational backup’ for the story ‘above’. You have begun reading Bernard Cohen’s new novel: a work in story and notes, a game, a play of genre, a performance.

Kally Palamas is an Australian of Greek descent; a trained and published philosopher barely coping with a personal tragedy in the man-made caves of Cooper Pedy. Estranged from her lover and living a solipsistic life, her world is disrupted when she travels to Greece to deal with the ceremony of her father’s death.

Her father, Akindynos Palamas, had been one of the many Greek migrants to travel to Australia in search of freedom and fortune. However, after achieving success in his adopted land he succumbed to the lure of the myths of his old country while his family continued their lives in Australia.