A big thank you to my colleagues at Wayne State University, to colleagues in the Modern Greek Studies Association, and to colleagues from Semester at Sea. And a warm ευχαριστώ to my Writing Workshops in Greece faculty-family—Christopher Bakken, Allison Wilkins Bakken, Nickole Brown, Joanna Eleftheriou, Carolyn Forché, Jessica Jacobs, Aimee Nezhukumatathil, Scott Cairns, and Courtney Zoffness. So much of this book was written during our times together.
There were many people who were instrumental as I brought this book to completion, particularly the generous friends who offered such astute, helpful comments on this novel in its various stages: Elizabeth Ames, Karen Emmerich, Adrianne Kalfopoulou, and Alix Ohlin. Thank you also to Ali Abazeed, Dean Bakopoulos, Charlie Baxter, Charlotte Boulay, Beth Chimera, Peter Ho Davies, Sugi Ganeshananthan, Elizabeth Gramm, Mike Hinken, Cara Hoffman, Donovan Hohn, Travis Holland, Lacy Johnson, Joanna Kakissis, Christine Kelley, Doug Kibbee, Jo Kibbee, Elizabeth Kostova, Vassilis Lambropoulos, Min Kyung Lee, Artemis Leontis, Olia Lydaki, Alexander Maksik, Amalia Melis, Eric Moe, Beth Nguyen, Eileen Pollack, David Rakowski, Sébastien Seixas, Stephanie Soileau, Alicia Stallings, Harry Stecopoulos, Giota Tachtara, Natasha Tsangarides, Jesmyn Ward, Claire Vaye Watkins, and Barbara Weissberger.
And I express my deepest gratitude to all my friends and family—in Greece and the U.S.—for their warm conversations, support, and love. And, of course, to my parents.
Jenny Marketou’s work Red Eyed Sky Walkers helped inspire the art installation in this book. For its astute analysis of physical space and intimacy in fiction, Stacey D’Erasmo’s The Art of Intimacy was invaluable.
Finally, to Jeremy, for so many years of partnership, love, patience, and joy—here’s to many more.
“What a gorgeous weave this novel is—somehow, with the lightest and most precise of touches, Bakopoulos reveals how lives, families, and countries fall together and apart in this thing we call life. In this one summer in Athens, love and death and art and politics all shimmer and quake, lifting and breaking the heart in equal measure.”
—STACEY D’ERASMO, author of Wonderland
“Bakopoulos writes of expatriates and exiles, immigrants and refugees, with such intimacy, tenderness, and wisdom, intuiting as she does that these are all states of grief. The stoicism with which her characters bear their various losses—portrayed in limpid, pensive prose reminiscent of Rachel Cusk’s work—is deeply affecting.”
—PETER HO DAVIES, author of The Fortunes
“Scorpionfish is transporting, a finely tuned story about art and friendship and the weight of history. Against the backdrop of the Greek economic crisis, Natalie Bakopoulos depicts Athens and island life with grace and accuracy, telling a story of return at once deeply personal and universal. A moving novel with an unexpected undertow.”
—CARA HOFFMAN, author of Running
“Scorpionfish dazzles, fierce and tender in turn. The clarity of its insights about love and loss and grief will break you and remake you. Savor it, and it will leave you changed.”
—JESMYN WARD, author of Sing, Unburied, Sing
“Scorpionfish is a riveting, elegant novel keenly observed in the manner of Elena Ferrante and Rachel Cusk. A divine, chiseled stunner.”
—CLAIRE VAYE WATKINS, author of Gold Fame Citrus
PHOTO: © JEREMIAH CHAMBERLIN
NATALIE BAKOPOULOS is the author of The Green Shore (Simon & Schuster, 2012), and her work has appeared in Tin House, the Iowa Review, the New York Times, Granta, Ploughshares, and The PEN/O. Henry Prize Stories. She’s an assistant professor of creative writing at Wayne State University in Detroit and a faculty member of the summer program Writing Workshops in Greece. She lives in Ann Arbor, Michigan.
READER’S GUIDE
1.As the book opens, Mira is mourning the loss of her parents. Did you sense when reading that there are other things she might be mourning as well?
2.Had they met a year earlier, do you think Mira and the Captain would have connected in the same way? What about five or ten years earlier?
3.We hear many of the conversations between the Captain and Mira, but there’s the sense that more is happening that we are not privy to. How did these off-the-page interactions affect your reading of the book, and your sense of their relationship?
4.When she first returns to Athens, Mira says, “I wasn’t ready to see anyone just yet, not even Nefeli—as if I were waiting to first see Aris before anyone else, as if Aris was my link to the rest of the city.” In what ways does Aris inform Mira’s relationship with Athens? Have you ever felt like there was a particular person who linked you to a place?
5.In what ways is Athens itself a character in this book? How has the Athens that Mira encounters in this story changed since she was a girl?
6.Discuss the differences between the words “exile,” “immigrant,” “migrant,” and “refugee.” How do you notice them used in this book? How do you notice them used in the media?
7.The Captain is reluctant to tell his own story, even to us, the readers. He finally tells it to Mira, though we don’t hear all of it. Why do you think the author made this choice?
8.Speaking about herself and Nefeli, Mira says, “I’d come to see that as we age, things are measured not in terms of potential but in terms of lack.” What do you think Mira’s referring to here? Are the things that she and Nefeli actually want—the things they are lacking in their own eyes—different from what others seem to want for them?
9.Discuss the role of art in this novel—not only how we consume it, but its role in public spaces, and the roles its creators play in society.
10. How does the novel incorporate Greek myth and literature?
Copyright © 2020 Natalie Bakopoulos
All rights reserved. No part of this book
