A recent Petrakis memoir Song of My Life

Praise for Song of My Life:

"The memoir deals with many experiences not chronicled in Petrakis's previous autobiographical writings, among these firsts are his vivid accounts of working on television projects and Hollywood films. The style is vintage Petrakis: storytelling with a fine blend of passion, humor, and self-reflection." (Dan Georgakas)

"This is an intensely personal 'confessional'—a reflection of the artistic honesty which has characterized much of his writing down through the years." (Richard C. Lindberg)

"To be lost in a babble of voices is to be mute. Chicago writers—African American, Asian, Hispanic, Irish, Jewish, Polish—have set themselves to transforming a turbulent city's port of entry babble into the mnemonic clarity of beauty in story and song. That is what Harry Mark Petrakis has done for the Greek community over a lifetime of empathetically powerful stories. That vision is the gift to readers that he continues to give us all in Song of My Life." (Stuart Dybek)

About the novels of Harry Mark Petrakis...

"In his tales, violence is measured by brotherhood, passionate hate by passionate love. And in the end it is man who, despite his weaknesses and his blindness, has the right to victory." — Elie Weisel

"I've often thought what a wonderful basketball team could be formed from Petrakis characters. Everyone of them is at least fourteen feet tall." — Kurt Vonnegut

"Harry Mark Petrakis is good news in American literature." — Issac Bashevis Singer

"I've always thought Harry Mark Petrakis to be a leading American novelist." — John Cheever

"Joy. A strange word when you think of contemporary fiction... or contemporary poetry, or contemporary anything. I am tempted to say that Petrakis is unique in our time because in his stories he can produce it, and he does regularly. It is as if some wonderful secret had been lost, then rediscovered by him." — Mark Van Doren

"Petrakis has something more important than skill; a deep and rich humanity." — Rex Warner