Jessie’s Song by Eleni Papanou

Jessie’s Song is the second work by Ms. Papanou that I have read and reviewed, the first being Unison (The Spheral Book I) . While the subject matter of the two is radically different, the rapid pace and startling imagination remain distinctive, causing me to be curious about the effect of that “spontaneous kundalini awakening” mentioned in her biography. As exotic as her settings are, she makes the reader feel that she has been there and is writing from actual experience.
Jessie’s Song, at its core a love story, largely takes place in the post-death realm that the couple traverses in tandem. (Spoiler Alert!) Unique is that for one of the characters, Markos, it is a near-death experience (NDE), while for his wife Stella it is full death experience (FDE), with the author demonstrating an excellent command of the literature on both “in-between” states. It gets complicated in parts—such subject matter is difficult to present with only words. It is not entertainment in the usual sense; the reader has to maintain focus and be willing to work a bit to relate to the unusual. At the end my only reservation was that perhaps I ought to read it again to get it all.
The music/poetry component does not distract—even for a jazz almost-illiterate like me—from the story as such an element might have done in hands less nimble at weaving the many threads together. I even enjoying the sense of feeling like a “groupie” to Markos’s band and its background story, a role I’ve loathed in real life.
Once again, Eleni proves to be an avant-garde Visionary Fiction author, whose works is on the leading edge in a genre that is already well out in front in exploring those mysterious realms beyond ordinary human consciousness.

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