In Patrimonies, George Kouvaros explores a question that becomes more pressing as we age: how are we to understand our parents and our obligations to them? As a second-generation Greek Australian, Kouvaros seeks answers through tender portraits of his migrant family and insightful cultural criticism, focusing on Greek film, art and literature.

Written in elegant, elliptical prose, the book illuminates the post-1960s migrant experience and the sacrifices these communities made while building new lives in Australia.

Some of the most touching passages are personal reflections. In one chapter, he evokes nostalgia for a lost 1960s Australia by listing products and brand names his parents stocked in their kiosk. Another anecdote describes a family wedding where Kouvaros’s parents receive rapturous applause for their 50-year union. In that moment, Kouvaros writes, ‘… all the memories, large and small, that bound these two people had been lured out of their hiding places and were demanding their due.’

A professor of film studies, Kouvaros expertly guides us through his personal artistic canon of family, home, and memory. In ‘The Keys to the House’, he examines how filmmakers depict domestic spaces. ‘The Phantom’s Call’ looks at hauntings and the past’s impact on the present. ‘The Work of Mourning’ delves into family grief and loss through Georgia Metaxas’s portrait series The Mourners.

For those who enjoy film and photographic criticism, Patrimonies is a rare treat. Kouvaros’s knowledge of cinema gives his writing a luminous quality, allowing him to evoke his upbringing in rich visual detail and move back and forth in time with a director’s flair.

Sifting through memory, faded photos, and half-remembered family lore, Patrimonies ultimately encourages us to contemplate our forebears’ lives with grace and humility. In doing so, Kouvaros suggests we may find a shared narrative, however imperfect and fragmentary it may be.