Last Days in Plaka
Henriette Lazaridis
(Author)
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.Product Details
Price
$26.95
$25.06
Publisher
Pegasus Books
Publish Date
April 09, 2024
Pages
304
Dimensions
6.0 X 9.0 X 0.91 inches | 1.21 pounds
Language
English
Type
Hardcover
EAN/UPC
9781639365616
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About the Author
Henriette Lazaridis is the author ofThe Clover House, which was a Boston Globe bestseller and Terra Nova, which is also available from Pegasus Books. Her short work has appeared in ELLE, The New York Times, Pangyrus, and more, and she has earned a Massachusetts Cultural Council Artists Grant. She is a graduate of Middlebury College, Oxford University, where she was a Rhodes Scholar, and the University of Pennsylvania. Having taught English at Harvard, she now teaches at GrubStreet in Boston. She founded The Drum Literary Magazine and currently runs the Krouna Writing Workshop in northern Greece. She writes the Substack newsletter The Entropy Hotel, at henriettelazaridis.substack.com. For more, visit henriettelazaridis.com.
Reviews
Praise for Henriette Lazaridis "At first, it's the forbidding ice sheets of Antarctica, a 'place that offers beauty with a fist, ' that dominate Henriette Lazaridis's ingenious new novel. When the two strands of the narrative unite and then combust, the 'terra nova' of the novel's title turns out to be a 'new world' not of the land but of the mind."-- "New York Times Book Review"
"As if Jack London and Anita Shreve had a literary baby: an absolutely immersive story of Antarctic survival, suffrage, a love triangle, art, and betrayal. Engrossing from the first moment to the last page, when you'll immediately return to the beginning to start again."-- "Jenna Blum, New York Times
"What would you risk to fulfill a desperate ambition? Whom would you betray if you had to--and at what cost to you, the ones you love, the world? Set against the dazzling frozen backdrop of 1910 Antarctica, this is a mesmerizer about love, rivalry, and the indominable strength of one of the best, most complex female characters I've read in years."-- "Caroline Leavitt, New York Times bestselling author of With"
"The novel's strength lies in its impressive marriage of art and exploration. Lazaridis relishes in long, gorgeous descriptions of scenes and explanations of shot-framing and darkroom photo processing as intimate as a love letter. This underlying stream of artistic enchantment hits the mark and keeps the pages turning."-- "Associated Press"
"As if Jack London and Anita Shreve had a literary baby: an absolutely immersive story of Antarctic survival, suffrage, a love triangle, art, and betrayal. Engrossing from the first moment to the last page, when you'll immediately return to the beginning to start again."-- "Jenna Blum, New York Times
"What would you risk to fulfill a desperate ambition? Whom would you betray if you had to--and at what cost to you, the ones you love, the world? Set against the dazzling frozen backdrop of 1910 Antarctica, this is a mesmerizer about love, rivalry, and the indominable strength of one of the best, most complex female characters I've read in years."-- "Caroline Leavitt, New York Times bestselling author of With"
"The novel's strength lies in its impressive marriage of art and exploration. Lazaridis relishes in long, gorgeous descriptions of scenes and explanations of shot-framing and darkroom photo processing as intimate as a love letter. This underlying stream of artistic enchantment hits the mark and keeps the pages turning."-- "Associated Press"
