The daughter of expat parents, Henriette Lazaridis is particular about the way she speaks Greek, putting great care into each word she utters. A former professor of English literature at Harvard and a Boston Globe bestselling author, Lazaridis’ focus on language can also be seen through the prose sprinkled throughout her newest novel, “Last Days in Plaka.” A distorted parallel of Lazaridis’ own story, the book follows a young woman – the daughter of expats – searching for connection to her Greek heritage and becoming entwined with the life of a woman much older along the way. Heralded as “a thoughtful and thought-provoking encounter between two worlds” by author Aminatta Forna, “Last Days in Plaka” comes out Tuesday; Lazaridis speaks that evening at Harvard Book Store to commemorate the release. We interviewed Lazaridis on March 31 over Zoom. The interview has been edited for length and clarity.
In “Last Days in Plaka,” you write about the experience of the main character, Anna, as someone who grew up in America and feels a bit different from other Greeks as a result. What’s your own connection with Greece?
That’s definitely a key way in which we’re similar. The questions that she’s wrestling with of how to belong and how to identify – it can be a question for me too. Deep down I have some insecurity, even though it’s true I don’t apparently have an accent when I speak Greek. No one can really tell that I’m not someone who grew up there, but it’s something that matters to me. I’ve wrestled over the years with how to identify myself and recently sort of gotten to the point where I say like, “Who cares? Just be who you are. You don’t have to hide the fact that you grew up in America, it’s fine. You are who you are. Everybody’s a mixture of something.”
What favorite memories or experiences from Greece made it into the story?
The Rooftop Cinema, the Cine Paris, in Plaka, right there on the main square. My whole childhood and adulthood, this movie theater was a thriving part of downtown Athens culture, and I have really fond memories of going there with my mother and with a family friend of ours. You sit on the roof, and rows of chairs are put on the surface of an apartment building. If you look to your left, you’re looking at the Parthenon. It’s right there. And if you look in front of you, you’re watching your rom-com or your James Bond movie or your classic French film or whatever it is. It’s beautiful, and it’s very typically Greek. That same movie theater features pretty prominently in the novel, as the two women go to a series of French films during the summer when they make their friendship.
Your narrator makes it clear Anna is not a star in what she does. Why?
I wanted to explore a person who’s really finding her way, and she’s lost. I wanted to create an arc for her that wasn’t going to be sweetness and light. She’s looking for triumph and transcendence, but maybe she doesn’t quite reach that. I wanted to explore someone who is not quite getting it, which is frankly, most of us. Most of us aren’t quite getting there. There is a very small percentage of people who really produce something truly transcendent. It was interesting to me to explore someone who was not exactly reaching what she wanted desperately to reach.
You’ve written that your son has connected with Greece in ways new and in some cases more in-depth than your own experience. Is that a factor for Anna?
Part of the book that resonates almost the most for me is the moment that Anna calls her mother. I really felt for the mother, who’s so far from her child, and knows that something is wrong, but she can’t put her finger on it, and Anna isn’t going to reveal anything to her. That idea of a mother and child being separated by that kind of distance was something that was interesting to me. My son lives in Romania right now, and I haven’t seen him since Christmas; I’m not sure when I’ll see him again. My own mother moved to the United States, thousands of miles from her mother, who died when she, my mother, was pregnant with me. That must have been very hard for her. The idea of the mother and the child and the different kinds of distance that can exist between them – often geographic and then often psychological or emotional – that was part of it. And then there are also the ways that you can connect, like, “this is a place that I grew up with, and now you’ve made it your own.”
In the end of the novel, situations very rapidly change in the span of a sentence. Why does the pace change so suddenly?
It was important that that wasn’t the end, and that it wasn’t going to stay perfect forever. I also kind of liked this little nod to, “Hey, I’m an omniscient narrator. I know things, and I don’t even have to tell you the whole story, but I’m going to share a little.” It was also a reminder, a hint, that the story moves on beyond the confines of the book.
- Henrietta Lazardis speaks at 7 p.m. Tuesday at Harvard Book Store, 1256 Massachusetts Ave., Harvard Square, Cambridge. Tickets are not required. Information is here or on her website.
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