Last Days in Plaka

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.