Something beautiful happened A story of survival and courage in the face of evil

Part memoir, part history, this book starts off promisingly, with the rhetorical question: "How do you accept that tragic irony is a cruelty reserved not merely for Shakespearean plot twists?" Here, Corporon (When the Cypress Whispers) shares several worthy tales. The first is of her Greek grandmother's efforts, along with those of her island community, to save a Jewish tailor and his four daughters during the Nazi occupation of Erikousa during World War II. The second is the author's journey to connect with the survivors of that story after her grandmother's death. And finally, it's the present-day account of a senseless hate crime that results in the death of two beloved family members. Corporon, a senior producer for the TV show Extra, unfortunately tends toward repetition to the point of distraction. At times, the narrative reads more sensationalist than what it intends to be-an homage to the silent courage of a few when faced with overwhelming evil. VERDICT A heartfelt story that ultimately survives the shortcomings of its delivery.-SC © Copyright 2017. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

Continuing a tale echoed fictionally in her When the Cypress Whispers (2014), Emmy Award-winning writer and producer Corporon relates a story of compassion and collective resistance during World War II, linking it to contemporary events.A small island near the larger Adriatic island of Corfu, Erikousa served as an unlikely refuge when, as Allied forces advanced, the Nazis rounded up Corfu's Jewish population and sent them by boat and train to Auschwitz. Perhaps 1 in 10 Jews survived, and that thanks to Christians who hid them awayoften in plain sight, telling Jewish children to answer to Christian names: "From now on, your name is Nikos. Do you understand?" said one of the rescuers. "If the soldiers hear the name Daniel, they will know you are Jewish, and they will take you from us." In a place marked by the old blood libels and ethnic uneasiness, the act was nothing short of heroic. When the Allied soldiers finally arrived later in 1944, many of the remaining Jews began to disperse, finding homes in Palestine and other lands. It took the author years to connect her grandmother's occasional reminiscences with these larger events, and when, as an adult, she finally did, she began to retrace them, traveling to places such as Yad Vashem, Israel's Holocaust memorial, as well as Erikousa. Corporon's account can be a little by-the-numbers, a little too self-directed, and a little overly sentimental ("we hugged and we cried in a jumble of English, Greek, and Hebrew, but we understood each other perfectly"), but there is undeniable emotional power in the connections her story helps forge between the living and the dead, some of whom might be otherwise forgotten. The narrative gathers extra force when the author's nephew is killed by an anti-Semitic gunman in a well-publicized attack in America, prompting her to wonder how removed the Nazi past really is from our own time. Heartfelt and most effective when the author's lens moves from herself to the events beyond her. Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.

Something Beautiful Happened introduction THEY WEREN'T REALLY GONE AFTER ALL New York April 13, 2014 It was 1 a.m. when I walked into Nico's room. His back was to me, but he was still awake. I knew he would be. We all were. Earlier that day we had gotten a call that didn't seem real. It still doesn't, and I imagine it never will. My 14-year-old nephew, Reat, and his grandfather, Bill, were dead. Bill and Reat had gone to the Jewish Community Campus in Overland Park, Kansas, so Reat could attend a singing audition. They were shot and killed by a white supremacist neo-Nazi as they exited their car. The man who killed them shouted "Heil Hitler!" when he was arrested and said he wanted to know what it felt like to kill Jews before he died. He murdered three beautiful people that day, none of whom were Jewish. I sat on the edge of Nico's bed and reached my hand out to stroke his hair. My sweet nine-year-old boy rolled over to face me, his big brown eyes brimming with tears. And then he spoke, breaking my heart for the second time that day. "I'm so sad, Mom," Nico said. "I don't understand. When you told me about our family and what they did, you told me the Nazis were gone and that the people were saved. How could this happen?" Nico was right. I did tell him that the Nazis were gone. And I did tell him that the family was safe. I'd thought they were. But then I was branded a liar that day, our family's history rewritten by a hate-filled man on a mission to kill Jews. Nico knew the story as well as I did. Again and again I'd told him how during World War II, my Greek grandmother, my yia-yia, was one of a group of islanders who helped hide a Jewish tailor named Savvas and his family from the Nazis. Despite the risk, despite the danger, and despite the fact that they were told that anyone found helping Jews would be killed along with their entire families, not one person on our tiny Greek island gave up the secret of Savvas. Not one. Savvas and his girls were saved and they all survived. For the past several years, Nico had witnessed my personal journey, my search to find Savvas's family, the girls my yia-yia had risked everything for. After countless dead ends and disappointments, I had finally found them. They were a beautiful family, including five people who are alive today because of what happened on our tiny island 70 years ago. We had celebrated with the descendants of Savvas's family. We celebrated and cried, because they had survived; goodness had prevailed and the Nazis were gone. That was on Thursday, April 10, 2014. Three days later, on Sunday, April 13, 2014, we cried again, because Bill and Reat were dead and we realized that the Nazis weren't really gone after all. "I don't understand," Nico asked. "How could this happen?" How do you accept that tragic irony is a cruelty reserved not merely for Shakespearean plot twists? How do you admit to your son that monsters exist outside of fairy tales? How do you explain to a child something you can't understand yourself? Excerpted from Something Beautiful Happened: A Story of Survival and Courage in the Face of Evil by Yvette Manessis Corporon All rights reserved by the original copyright owners. Excerpts are provided for display purposes only and may not be reproduced, reprinted or distributed without the written permission of the publisher.