Last Days in Plaka
A Novel
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- $16.99
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- $16.99
Publisher Description
An immersive and multifaceted novel—The Talented Mr. Ripley by way of Elena Ferrante—that explores the lies at the heart of an old woman’s identity and the desperation of a young woman’s struggle to belong.
Today's Athens is a city of contradictions and complexity—it is grand and scruffy, ancient and modern, full of strivers, refugees and old-timers—and nowhere more so than the neighborhood of Plaka, where the Parthenon looms overhead and two women grapple with what is right and what is true, and how to live your life when you are running out of time.
Searching for connection to her parents’ heritage, Greek-American Anna works at an Athens gallery by day and makes street art by night. Irini is elderly and widowed, once well-to-do but now dependent on the charity of others. When the local priest brings the two women together, it’s not long before they form an unlikely bond. Anna’s friends can’t understand why she spends so much time with the old woman, yet Anna becomes more and more consumed by Irini’s tales of a glamorous past. As they join the priest’s tiny congregation to study the Book of Revelations in preparation for a pilgrimage to Patmos, Anna sinks deeper into Irini’s stories of an estranged daughter and lost wealth and the earthquake damage to her noble home.
Looking for revelation of her own, and driven by a sense that time is running out, Anna makes a decision that puts her in peril, exposes Irini's web of lies, and compels Anna to confront the limits of her own forgiveness.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
A young artist travels to Greece to learn more about her roots and strikes an unlikely friendship with an elderly woman in the muted latest from Lazaridis (The Clover House). Anna is 27, around the same age her parents were when they left Athens to emigrate to the U.S., and she's made the reverse journey to find out more about her origins. She gets a job at an art gallery and spends her free time attending Catholic mass and making murals. A priest at the church encourages Anna to visit fellow parishioner Irini, 82, knowing the lonely older woman will benefit from Anna's company. At first, Irini seems reluctant to be Anna's friend because of their age difference, but they soon bond over watching Truffaut films and Irini shares her passion for classical music. She also recounts the devastating story of an earthquake that destroyed her house and confides in Anna about her sadness over her estranged daughter and grandson. Though Irini's family story builds to a lackluster revelation, Lazardis seeds the narrative with moving reflections on art and death ("Wouldn't a better reward for true believers be one giant embrace of all one's loved ones like the final grand chord in Mozart, and then death, silence, and the end?"). Patient readers will appreciate this subtle story's insights.