Helena: an Odyssey is an absorbing saga of myth and obsession, of a family haunted by their illustrious Byzantine past and a compulsion to redeem it. Bittersweet love stories are set against wars, forced population exchanges and confusion about ethnic identity. Woven throughout lies the power and symbolism of hair. Helena's daughter Georgia, narrating the tale, begins in 1908 when her great grandparent the Greek Yiannis Kouvalis and two sons set out on an epic journey from a poor Turkish village to glittering Smyrna on the Aegean Coast. Eventually succeeding as prosperous merchants, the sons...