| Front Cover |
Book Details |
|
| Author |
|
| Selling Price |
$12.50
|
| Genre |
Fiction |
| Publication Date |
1966 |
| Format |
Hardcover |
| Publisher |
David McKay Company, Inc. |
| Language |
English |
| Extras |
Dust Jacket |
|
| Plot |
Leonidas Matsoukas, operator of the Pindar Counseling Service (solutions provided for all problems of life and love); proponent of wildly creative get-rich-quick schemes; passionately loving husband and father, equally passionate lover of the beautiful bakeshop proprietor Anthoula; inveterate gambler, mighty fighter . . . Leonidas Matsoukas, heels run down, cuffs shabby, collar frayed, is the hero of this superb new novel.
Hero. That is the word. "The gods have chosen you for eternal disaster," his friend Cicero, the gambling-house dealer, tells Matsoukas, "but you take every act that has been prepared for your punishment and turn it into some kind of triumph."
Every act but one - the tragedy that has befallen his only son. And even that Matsoukas is determined to reverse.
In the second world war, Matsoukas fought joyously for his native Greece against the flabby Italians. When the Nazis came with their tanks and dive-bombers Matsoukas retreated to the mountains and caves of Crete and kept on fighting. And he loved it. After the war he came over to Chicago to conquer America, started the Pindar Counseling Service, and became the pride and terror of Falconis' gambling parlor.
Matsoukas loves fights, friends, his little daughters, fresh bread, pungent retsina wine. He makes love like a tiger, or like one of his legendary gods, so that the earth shakes. To him, every woman is beautiful, even his ill-tempered wife. The sexuality of all women is to be reverenced.
Toward God, Matsoukas is less reverent. "Man have mercy on you," he says to God, very gravely, holding Him to account for the plight of his son Stavros, who cannot speak, and can hardly move, and is given to frightful seizures.
For Stavros, Matsoukas pits himself against Fate, in the classic Greek sin of hubris. This is the story of that conflict - Matsoukas against the gods - a novel of enormous power, huge laughter, heartbreaking and triumphant.
Jacket design by Paul Bacon Design Studio
DAVID McKAY COMPANY, INC.
New York
from DUST JACKET
|
| Personal Details |
| Condition |
Good |
| Owner |
FamilyHistorySites |
| FHS ItemID |
20040928 |
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| Product Details |
| LoC Classification |
PS3566.E78D7 1990 |
| Dewey |
813.54 20 |
| Nr of Pages |
180 |
|
| Notes |
| Jacket shows age discoloration and some wear. |
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