American poet Max Parnell has created an idyllic life for his family in a village in the Greek Peloponnese. His adored wife Briseis, English with a Greek grandfather, teaches in the local school. Their eight-year-old twins, Leonidas and Andromache, speak Greek with their many pals. A summer visit from a New York artist friend prompts a fresh plunge into local culture, history, personalities, and scenic wonders. Sandra’s desire for a child will provoke a dramatic intervention by her friends. Part Two leaps eight years ahead, as Briseis’s mortal illness changes the marriage and all their lives. Mark Sargent’s beautiful novel, bursting with exuberance and poetry, deepens into a fiercely honest, strongly felt portrait of a family’s experience of mortality and loss.
Born in 1950 in Olympia, Washington, Mark Sargent moved to Oregon to attend Mount Angel College. In Portland he founded the Impossibilists, a Dada publication/performance group, and the jazz-poetry band Defenestration. In 1990 he moved with his wife and son Alekos to the mountains of southern Greece, where he has remained, writing poetry, fiction, screen and stage plays while caring for an olive orchard. His books include Fool on the Hill (Fast Books, 2019), Out Loud, Stelae Stories, Pagan Favors, and The Li Ho Reflux Tour.
