“[The Goodtime Girl] is foreign, surprising because it lets the reader see, in its details, the mix of cultural history in the land that is often called the cradle of Western civilization while, at the same time, letting us know that gangsters are kind of like gangsters wherever they are — strutting cockerels with a peculiar sense of social harmony.”
“It is Fragoulis’ almost frightening ability to get us to feel for her characters that makes this book work…Kivelli is a young woman who survives against all odds, leaving her charmed past behind to make it big in a man’s world of brothels and brawls, ouzo and hashish and rebetika. You aren’t likely to forget her journey.”
“Fragoulis sidesteps the expected, then adeptly creates lives that wither or are remade: characters breathe, voices populate smoky rooms, and music leaks into the streets…Where (the novel) stands out is in its ability to recount past as timeless “now”; it could be a story happening today in any number of places, rather than in Greece 90 years ago.”
“Tess Fragoulis offers a wealth of exotic imagery … Reading The Goodtime Girl is like watching a visually vibrant movie with the sound turned off.”
“Against [the] dominant male figures, the developing friendship between Kivelli and Marianthi, forms the novel’s backbone. This female bond provides a counter-narrative of Kivelli’s growth as she shifts her loyalties from the men who can help her survive to the women who can teach her to forge an identity for herself beyond her culture’s patriarchal strictures.”
“The sights and sounds of Smyrna, Piraeus and Athens are brought to life by Fragoulis’s finely crafted prose. The cast of characters – manghas, manghissas, and the girls in Kyria Effie’s brothel, are fully realized. The result is a novel which is as tough and intelligent as Kivelli herself.”
“If you can’t afford a trip to Greece this summer, The Goodtime Girl is the next best thing. Escape guaranteed.”
“The Goodtime Girl is an epic and very Greek book: passionate, lush, visual, sometimes melodramatic … If you know Greece, you will see and hear it while reading. If you do not, doors and worlds will open to you.”