Why a Booktrail?
A real journey of epic scale from the war-torn streets of Nazi-occupied Athens through the military junta years and on into the troubled city of recent times.
The House on Paradise Street
What you need to know before your trail
When Nikitas Perifanis is killed in a car crash in Athens, his English wife, Maud, tracks down the mother, Antigone, who had left him as a three-year-old.
Antigone returns to Greece for her son’s funeral and finds out that Nikitas had been distressed in the days before his death.
As well as coming to terms with her grief there, she also discovers a lot about the place and people she left behind as well as the spirit and the history of all around her – the Nazi occupation and the dark days of the Dekemvriana.
Travel Guide
Greece and the Greek culture and history is brought wonderfully alive here with a mix of fact and fiction into a very engrossing read.
A story which moves backwards and forwards through time showing Nazi-occupied Athens and the personal suffering of Antigone under the Greek Civil War and her subsequent actions.
Antigone is a young mother who finds herself caught up in the chaos and confusion of war. Nazi occupied Athens is a terrible place to be and she is forced to make a decision that will haunt her for the rest of her life. She and her brother Marcos are caught up in a whirlwind of events.
War time Greece is a grim reality – the shock of losing everything during the war was deeply felt and Xanthe described the endless search for food, the negotiations with black marketeers and the increasing presence of death and starvation on the streets.
The other voice is that of Maud who starts to wonder just what kind of man her husband was and why he died at night, out in the country in the middle of a drive. Just what kind of man was her husband.
When I first knew Nikitas, I was intrigued by the drama of his infancy
Both women return to the past for answers and to understand the present and future, a visit to the past is essential. Rather like a country which has to value and challenge its history, rather like Greece.
The past is done and there’s nothing we can do to change it. But now it’s different, you can leave all that behind. You own the future
The December events – the Civil War of 1946-49. The author includes a small chapter on Greek history at the back so make sure you read this as it really places the book in context!
Where Next?
