Greek Lessons is an extraordinary and dense novel that offers up new depths on each reading. It is short – 160 pages – which means you can read and reread it in a day if you want to. I have a soft spot for short novels – their intensity, their skill in delivering something sharp and true in a few breaths – but the bias is irrelevant because it does what all good novels do: it invites the reader into a world that reaches well beyond the confines of its pages.
Two characters – one male, one female – take turns to narrate scenes from their lives (the man in first person and the woman in third person). The woman is bereaved of her mother and processing the loss of her son to the custody of her ex-husband and is also experiencing the loss of her ability to speak; the man, similarly, is processing losing his connection to place and family, as well as the loss of his eyesight (an hereditary condition that will eventually blind him). The woman begins to attend lessons in ancient Greek taught at a private academy by the man (neither of them is named) and their meandering relationship begins to evolve.
