What Defines a Revolutionary?
By Natalie Bakopoulos
Simon & Schuster, $25.00, 353 pages
The Green Shore centers around the lives of four main characters during the 1967 coup in Athens, Greece. The story introduces us to Eleni, a widowed doctor, her brother Mihalis, and Eleni’s two daughters Anna and Sophie. Each of this cast handles and reacts to the coup differently. Eleni does not intend to support the revolutionaries but puts her medical knowledge to good use. Mihalis is an eccentric poet that does not know when to stop, while Sophie chooses to run to Paris but cannot escape Greece in her own way. Finally Anna, the youngest, seems innocent but ends up playing a very adult game. The Green Shore starts out slowly and it took this reviewer to almost the middle of the book before she was drawn in. Historically, the story was interesting. The student demonstration was so realistic; the reviewer felt she smelled the tear gas. This story is a testament to how people react to a coup and what defines what a revolutionary really is and is not. But the story was so much more. Eleni struggles with watching her children grow up and have their own lives. Sophie struggles with moving from being a naïve child trying to make her mark into motherhood. Anna struggles with figuring out who she wants to be. The Green Shore is a must read for someone who likes complicated characters coupled with historical events.
Reviewed By Seniye Groff
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