I wasn’t planning to write this novel. In fact, it caught me by surprise, a small glimpse of it popping into my head before sleep one night in August of 2020, and persisting there when I woke up to find the old woman with the figs could not be ignored. I’m weirdly grateful to the pandemic that prevented me from traveling to Greece and made me miss the country and miss even scruffy, graffitied Athens so much that I ended up writing a novel about it.
The fact that I had encouragement and feedback and questions of the best kind as I wrote the book is owed entirely to the generosity and good spirit of a very large number of people. I am lucky to belong to not one but three writing groups, and instead of finding this a bit excessive, as most people would, I find it energizing and incredibly rewarding. Thank you, then, to the Pendemics (get it?)—Cathy Elcik, Cat Mazur, Lara McLeod—who listened and read along on Zoom every week. Thank you to the Salties—Anjali Mitter Duva, Crystal King, and Jen Dupee—who read the slightly more polished chunks as they took shape. And thank you to the members of the DLC—Anne Buckley, Sue Evans, Medb Sichko, Julia Sullivan, Ruth Kandel, Wendy Shames, and Melissa Davy—who saw this book in bite-sized excerpts along the way. I owe a huge thank you to Elene Catrakilis for her insights on Greek Orthodox theology and religious practice, as well as for her writer’s perception. And another enormous thank you to Caroline Leavitt for her critical insights on the manuscript.
For her help with the Ethiopian details, thank you to Robyn Churchill. And thank you to all my friends (Kelley Lessard, Dena Enos, Loryn Sheffner, Susan Bernhard, to name a few) who listened to my tales of bemused enthusiasm as I talked about this “strange little novel” I was writing. Here, I must thank my daughter Nike Power for reminding me always not to dismiss my own work (by calling it a strange little novel), and for believing in me and encouraging me not to give up on this novel-writing thing.
For some of the Greek details, I’m grateful to my son Eoin Power, who knows Athens better than I do, and to Albert Barry and Popi Patsamani whose wonderful friendship has allowed me to experience the city from close-up, especially in recent years.
As I write these acknowledgments that are full of em-dashes and commas (and parentheses), I must take time to thank Susan McGrath for her exceptional copyediting—and for her suggestion that I cut some of those em-dashes when, say, a triple set appeared in one single sentence. Thank you, once again, to everyone at Faceout Studio for the ridiculously gorgeous cover. As for editors, I am so grateful to be working with Jessica Case at Pegasus Books, a press I profoundly admire. Thank you to Julia Romero for championing the book, and everyone at Pegasus, including Maria Fernandez for the beautiful interior design. I’m proud to have that flying horse on my book spines—and not just because I’m Greek. The team isn’t complete without Megan Beatie, publicist extraordinaire, and her staff at Megan Beatie Communications.
I must thank the man who brought me snacks and sustenance when I was working straight through on this book, the man who maybe even brought me ouzo when he knew I was feeling especially nostalgic for this place I missed so much, the man who delighted in my excitement about this project. Matt, I love you and I’m so grateful for your encouragement.
And finally, thank you to my parents, Lazaros Lazaridis and Suzanne Lazaridis. I think they would have liked this novel. My mother would have loved the reference to Zonars where she and my father used to go for drinks. My father would have loved the fact that I included Aznavour. I love all those things—and Greece, and Athens—because of them.