Ikons: A Collection of Stories Pappaellinas, George

A Greek family in Australia, caught between two worlds. George Pappaellinas' linked stories follow the Papadakis family through migration, memory, and the slow unraveling of old certainties in a new land. There's the father clinging to traditions that feel increasingly foreign to his children. The mother navigating suburban Melbourne with recipes and prayers from another life. The kids trying to figure out who they are when home is both everywhere and nowhere. Pappaellinas writes with warmth and clear-eyed honesty about the immigrant experience — the guilt, the grief, the small victories, the way a family can fracture and hold together at the same time. This is Australian migrant literature at its most human: unsentimental, quietly powerful, and deeply felt. For readers who loved Christos Tsiolkas or Alice Pung.