ebook
Expected publication: March 1st 2017 by Berkley Books
A poignant and
evocative novel of one Greek woman's story of her own and her nation's epic
struggle in the aftermath of World War II.Aliki is one of the last of her kind, a lamenter who mourns and celebrates the passing of life. She is part of an evolving Greece, one moving steadily away from its rural traditions. To capture the fading folk art of lamenting, an American researcher asks Aliki to record her laments, but in response, Aliki sings her own story...
It begins in a village in northeast Greece, where Aliki witnesses the occupying Nazi soldiers execute her father for stealing squash. Taken in by her friend Takis's mother, Aliki is joined by a Jewish refugee and her son, Stelios. When the village is torched and its people massacred, Aliki, Takis and Stelios are able to escape just as the war is ending.
Fleeing across the chaotic landscape of a post-war Greece, the three become a makeshift family. They are bound by friendship and grief, but torn apart by betrayal, madness and heartbreak.
Through Aliki's powerful voice, an unforgettable one that blends light and dark with wry humor, My Last Lament delivers a fitting eulogy to a way of life and provides a vivid portrait of a timeless Greek woman, whose story of love and loss is an eternal one.
My Thoughts…
My Last Lament
is told by Aliki. She witnesses her
father’s murder while in Greece during WWII. The story she tells starts at her childhood
and continues throughout her life. There
was so much death, poverty, and hope within Aliki’s story.
This story is
written as if Aliki is speaking directly to the reader. I felt like I was having a personal
conversation with her and I was connected to her. I could feel her pain, her worries, and
her hope in the future. She was such
a strong and amazing character that I found myself looking up to her. Her determination to make a life for herself
and those who are important to her made her a hero of her time. I was in awe of all that she did without
yet when someone else was in need she never hesitated to offer her help.
My Last Lament
is a worthy read. It is not a light or
easy story but one that will stay with you.
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Praise for MY LAST LAMENT
“This is an astonishing novel, an imaginative feat of epic
proportions. I was gripped from the first line. These characters! This story!
Here is war and joy and terror and love and death and humor all mixed up, just
as in life. I loved MY LAST LAMENT so
much I kept shoving it in people’s faces, saying,
‘This book! You have to read this book!’”
—Anna Solomon, author of Leaving
Lucy Pear and The Little Bride
“If you loved All
the Light We Cannot See, you will devour this novel;
a heart-rending World War II story you’ve never heard and won’t
soon forget.”
—Susan Meissner, author of Secrets
of a Charmed Life and A Bridge Across the Ocean
“A Greek epic in its own right, MY LAST LAMENT is the story of a nation trying to
live up to its past while struggling to come to terms with its present, and of
the indomitable people surviving that struggle. Aliki is a vivid and
fully-realized heroine, both fragile and formidable, and her story is one that
will keep readers quickly turning the pages even as they linger over Brown's
lovely language.
MY LAST LAMENT is a book I will never forget."
—Alyssa Palombo, author of The
Violinist of Venice and The Most Beautiful Woman in
Florence
“A
remarkable accomplishment, a long and circuitous tale of three young people,
orphaned by World War II in Greece, and their struggles to survive the brutal and
chaotic aftermath—
a real Greek tragedy, full of wit, pathos, and poetry”
—Dennis McFarland, author of Nostalgia
