My Last Lament

In 1943, Greece was under German control. The effects of the occupation were felt for years, as Aliki dutifully recounts onto cassette tapes in her father’s house. Brown’s (Blood Dance) second novel delves into the life of Aliki as she agrees to help a young American ethnographer learn about the Greek art of dirge-poems, though the attempt to teach quickly becomes a study of Aliki’s past. Her life was set by the pace of war and dotted with its consequences: her father was executed by the Germans; she made new friends with Jews who were in need of hiding places; she watched as her village was burned; and then, still a child, she set out for new life in Athens with her friends Stelios and Takis, who would be come her own definition of family. The three travel throughout Greece; as civil war breaks out, they find work as puppeteers, anchoring themselves in the familiar stories of Karagiozis. They find good fortune in friends made along the way. As their time together ends, Aliki is left with a story that becomes her own lament. Though the language is at times too simplistic, Brown tells a beautiful story about life, war, and love. (Apr.)