Last Days in Plaka

by Henriette Lazaridis

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.

Genres: Fiction, Contemporary, Literary Fiction, Greece, Novels, Adult Fiction, Cultural

239 pages, Kindle Edition

First published April 2, 2024

About the author

Henriette Lazaridis' novel TERRA NOVA was published by Pegasus Books in 2022. The New York Times called TERRA NOVA "ingenious" and "provocative". She is the author of the best-selling novel THE CLOVER HOUSE. Her short work has appeared in publications including Elle, Forge, Narrative Magazine, The New York Times, New England Review, The Millions, and elsewhere, and has earned her a Massachusetts Cultural Council Artists Grant. Henriette grew up in the Boston area as the only child of Greek expats, speaking Greek as her first language. Devoted to storytelling since her childhood bedtime stories from the Odyssey, Henriette earned degrees in English literature from Middlebury College, Oxford University, where she was a Rhodes Scholar, and the University of Pennsylvania. She teaches at GrubStreet in Boston and runs the Krouna Writing Workshop in Greece. You can subscribe for free to her Substack newsletter The Entropy Hotel, about athletic and creative challenges. http://www.henriettelazaridis.substac....

Reviews

[Jesse Hassinger · Rating 4 out of 5]

A thoroughly engrossing and simple tale of the relationship one summer between an elderly widow and a young woman sent to give her figs by their priest. What transpires over the course of the next number of weeks is by turns quiet and distressing as this mismatch of a couple find their bearings in each other’s lives. Sharing moments of theological intimacies and secular merriment, these two women are able to find a tenuous balance that teeters at the edge of dissolution.

Through the book the films of Truffaut and Rossellini are invoked and discussed between the women, though it is Bergman and Pasolini that come closer to mind in this reader’s assessment of the religious relationship to one’s own deity. Lazaridis is able to draw a fine line between each character’s piousness while never preaching or coming close to proselytizing; instead the internal relationship that her characters embody and attempt to achieve are their own: sometimes at odds with a grander belief system and sometimes at odds with even their own.

While there is nothing loud or attention-getting about this book, and many people might pass it by because of that, it will find its audience of those who appreciate the subtlety of a gorgeous turn-of-phrase and expert tracking of an omniscient narrator who knows when to invoke the reader and when to extend their reach beyond the scene at hand. This book may not be able to call through the din of other more flashy tales in my head, but when it will call—and it will call—I look forward to hearing its voice again.

[Jen · Rating 3 out of 5]

Three and a half. A quiet, thoughtful story of identity, friendship, forgiveness. The reveal at the end was a bit anticlimactic. The blurb calling the book “talented Mr Ripley by way of Elena Ferrante” sets you up to expect something more sinister and shocking. I picked this up for the Athens setting but its thought provoking conclusion has stuck with me.

[Maggie · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5 stars!
Irini and Anna are similar in some aspects, but vastly different in others. Irini seeks community, although her pride will never allow her to say so, and takes advantage of people who seek her companionship. Anna seeks community and seems blissfully unaware of how her unabashed goal of making a community for herself in Greece can be grating for the people around her.

I feel like Anna hoped that Irini would mend her complicated relationship with Greece and help her forge a connection. She saw her as a Grandmother figure, which is why she is so devastated by Irini’s lies.

I thought the religious element was interesting!

[Alicia Primer · Rating 3 out of 5]

Greek travelogue about yearning young woman and an elderly woman who may or may not be trustworthy. Too much religion for this reader and characters didn’t appeal as much as the setting.

[Robin · Rating 4 out of 5]

A quiet lyrical coming of age story, set in Athens. A young American woman spending a year in Greece attempting to connect with her heritage becomes the unlikely friend of an impoverished older lady. They meet through their church, as the priest sends Anna to Irini with a gift of figs. Anna sees Irini as a source of authentic Greek stories and history; Irini at first uses Anna to pick up the check and buy the tickets on their shared outings. But as Anna pushes for more information about Irini's wealthy past and ruined mansion, she brings the older woman to a breaking point. Both women are profoundly changed by the relationship, and both got a great deal more than they bargained for.

[Chanel Chapters]

DNF

[Stephanie Fowler · Rating 5 out of 5]

I stumbled upon this book and ended up enjoying reading it within a few days. I was transported to a different time and place as I read about a friendship that crossed generations and cultures. Ultimately, the book is about heritage, friendship, trust, forgiveness, and how we choose to portray ourselves to others. There is strife and challenge throughout the book, but it is still a feel-good story.

[K · Rating 2 out of 5]

This was very even-keeled - to the point of feeling muted. I liked the characters, but wasn't really on the edge of my seat to find out what was going to happen to them. I loved the descriptions of Athens, though.

[Beth C. Greenberg · Rating 4 out of 5]

I was first drawn to the story by the setting - Plaka, the oldest neighborhood in Athens. As a lover of Greek mythology, I greatly enjoyed my visit to this ancient neighborhood, with its multi-level streets bursting with shops and restaurants, all a stone's throw from the magnificent Acropolis (and the Parthenon), Temple of Zeus, and Greek Theatre, all of which appear in this novel. I'm also a huge fan of figs, so the sumptuous cover grabbed me!

Having read The Clover House by the same author, I was anticipating a deep exploration of the odd "friendship" between the two main characters - and I was not disappointed. Using a 3rd person omniscient (and brutally honest) narrator, Henriette Lazaridis provides an unflinching expose of both women, often breaking down the fourth wall to speak directly to the reader and share insights or future outcomes even the characters didn't know.

The blurb describes this story as "The Talented Mr. Ripley by way of Elena Ferrante" but I read shades of The Scarlet Letter - especially with all the Catholic theology threads that feel central to both characters' seeking. The prose is dense with character motivations (and there are no chapters, just 4 parts with section breaks) so this is not a quick read, and many long-foreshadowed secrets are revealed right at the end. Overall, I enjoyed revisiting the streets of Plaka through the eyes of a native daughter and lifetime resident, Irini, and the younger Greek-American Anna, whose parents left Greece to raise their daughter in America.

[Michelle Wolf · Rating 5 out of 5]

Last Days in Plaka by Henriette Lazaridis is a beautifully written novel about the relationship between a young adult woman, Anna, and an elderly woman, Irini, who are brought together by their priest in Athens, Greece. While not a religious book, the story highlights the desire people have to find meaning in life and the contemplation of an afterlife and how these concerns are universal across age, faith, and nationality. Lazaridis captures this effortlessly while still giving her characters so much depth beyond their existential thoughts and motives.

The novel contains the relatable, feel-good narrative of any great coming-of-age story, as Anna works to understand her place in the world, but with the suspenseful tone of a thriller, as her relationship with Irini isn’t what it seems. The slow build of tension had me hooked from the start and led to a twist I couldn’t have seen coming.

I would recommend this novel to anyone who enjoys complex characters and a bit of mystery. It was a really lovely read.

[Jessica Carol · Rating 4 out of 5]

Lazaridis's straightforward prose has something most contemporary novels don't: thoughtfulness.

I think that's what kept me so engaged in a "type" of story I don't usually read, meaning, simply, a novel set in current times.

The interior of the story I appreciated as my own writing is deeply interior, and I like seeing how other authors approach that kind of writing.

Perhaps, if I were to be picky, there was a tad too much of telling the reader instead of showing relational dynamics so we could come to our own conclusions, but that would make it a much larger novel and the story would have suffered. A bit more, I think, could've been done through dialogue.

All in all, I'm happy I've read it and would recommend.

[Ella · Rating 4 out of 5]

What an odd, lovely little book. I wanted more out of the ending, but on the whole, this is both an achingly evocative study of place and a deeply relatable story for anyone who’s ever been a 20-something living in a different country from the one they were raised in and, adrift from family and from truly fitting in, tries to adhere themselves to something that seems older and larger than them. Or maybe this is just relatable particularly to me as someone who enjoys making friends with odd older people via going to church services. Fortunately, most of them are much, much kinder than Irini.

[Harmony · Rating 1 out of 5]

I read this for a book club and did not enjoy it, primarily due to the writing style. This book does a lot of “tell, don’t show” instead of the other way around, like explicitly telling the reader “this is foreshadowing for something that will happen later.” I also found the sentence structure to be pretty clunky - at times it felt like the writing of someone trying to meet a word count, choosing to say in 20 words what could have been communicated in 10. Not my cup of tea.

[Stephanie Tournas · Rating 4 out of 5]

A young Greek American woman in Athens befriends an older lady who initially rebuffs her. Anna finds that the old lady Irini helps her understand the Greek past of her Greek immigrant parents, and together they prepare to go on a church trip to Patmos. But then Anna finds out that Irini has been lying to her about her past and she must decide whether forgiveness is in her power. Meticulous language describes the setting and interiority of the two women.

[Gabrielle · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was a letdown. I liked the idea of it taking place in Greece, and the potential to make Athens come alive, but it did not do it for me. The storyline was lacking and abrupt. It is not that the characters (despite their flaws) are so unlikeable, but they are also quite dull (Irini was the most interesting, but even she was a bit confusing). Coming back to the plot -- the pace is slow, but then there is the sudden revelation of the deception, and a rapid conclusion. It was all just lacking.

[Wendelle]

A story of disillusionment as a young Greek-American woman journeys back to Athens to reconnect with her roots and heritage, but discovers that her closest bond formed with an older woman was germinated among falsehoods. It's a novel full of discernment of the primary characters' underlying thoughts, perceptions and desires.

[Stella Nahatis · Rating 3 out of 5]

In Last Days in Plaka, Lazaridis gives an account of the old and new. We find ourselves in the old Athens through the seasoned eyes of Irini and familiarize ourselves with the current Athens through the excitement of young Anna. We are privy to the emotions of the old and the new as the women reveal them to us.
Stella Nahatis, author of Taxi to America

[Cari · Rating 4 out of 5]

Booklist review to come!

[Lynne Reeves Griffin · Rating 5 out of 5]

Greek-American writer, Henriette Lazaridis writes a poignant story of belonging in Last Days in Plaka. Beautiful story set in a richly observed Athens. Highly recommend!

[Diane · Rating 3 out of 5]

Liked this, interesting characters finding their way in Greece.

[Amy · Rating 4 out of 5]

3.5 stars rounded up. I really liked the simplicity of the writing and descriptions of Athens.

[Gillian Luongo · Rating 2 out of 5]

Scanned most of the second half of this book. Not much happens. Heavy on descriptions, thin on plot.

[Claudia Anastasopoulos · Rating 3 out of 5]

Started kind of slow but ended strong. Deep thoughts.

[Anne Buckley · Rating 5 out of 5]

Two years ago I was workshopping the first 50 pages of my novel with the lovely Henriette Lazaridis and an excellent group of writers in Papingo, Greece. I book-ended my trip with an overnight in Athens and explored many of the places that went on to appear in Henriette’s third novel, Last Days in Plaka. If you’re hankering after an escape to Greece, I highly recommend immersing yourself in the pages of this NY Times bestseller and GMA Buzz Pick. You’ll meet Irini, an elderly Greek lady who is attached to the history and traditions of Greece, and Anna, a Greek American who spends a year in Greece to connect with her heritage. They both attend the local church and are encouraged (actually set up) by the pastor to meet up. The two resist a friendship at first as Irini insists that they have nothing in common. At a surface level, she’s not wrong. Anna is the epitome of everything Irini dislikes about the younger generation. She is a street artist with no knowledge of the importance of traditions. But when they both frequent the open air movie theater they discover they are more alike than either would care to admit, and they form an unlikely friendship. Both are searching for their true identity and a sense of belonging. Their reluctant and sometimes awkward conversations lead Anna on a path of self discovery, and Irini to face family secrets that she’s kept hidden for decades. The characters both have vulnerabilities that could make them unlikeable, but the way they are written serves to make them even more real and appealing. Let Anna and Irini take you on a journey through the old to the new and see how they coexist in the beautiful city of Athens.

[Judi · Rating 3 out of 5]

I picked up this book because I, too, lived in Athens as a young woman, and I am now an old woman like Irini, except not so cranky. Would I be able to identify with both characters at once, in this city I once loved?

The answer is no. Even as a young woman I was never as self-absorbed, clueless, and blind to irony as Anna is. She can shade the truth to her parents, to her friends, to Irini and to the priest — and then harden into a self-righteous twat when on old woman whom she has known for only a few weeks doesn’t reveal all the messy details of her life. Since when does an aimless street artist who must tag buildings under cover of darkness get to take the moral high ground on truth? Who is she to think she deserves to know Irini’s secrets?

Seriously, I wanted to pinch her. Maybe I actually am as cranky as Irini.

If the book was intended to drive home the point about forgiveness, it did it in a most clumsy way. Wrapping it up in the Book of Revelation might have worked for some readers, but it left me merely bored and confused. And why give Irini a chance to redeem herself but deny Anna the same opportunity.? Why didn’t she just board the damn boat to Patmos, learn a little about redemption, and grow up?

[Larkin · Rating 4 out of 5]

I picked this up because of the cover, and the title, and because both made me feel that by reading this novel I could catch a glimpse of Greece in summertime, a place I used to know very well and now miss very much. The rest was nice too: a little contemplation on growing up and how realizing that you can’t be the main character in everyone else’s story makes you a little less naive. The empty, sun baked streets of Athens are the most evocative characters in this book, however, and I love it when a place is the main character.