Palimpsest

This is a book about high ideals and low obsessions, truth and identity, immigration, nationality and race; about what we believe and what happens when belief degenerates into fanaticism. When thirty-year-old philosopher Kally Palamas must unexpectedly leave Coober Pedy, Australia, to attend her estranged fathers funeral in Zelopolis, Greece, all she really wants is to escape her stagnant life and her inability to participate in academia after the death of her daughter. In Zelopolis, Kally begins receiving anonymous installments of The Akindyniad, an account of her fathers life, written by the mute and deformed son of a local shepherd. She discovers that her fathers noble ambition to become a philosopher has devolved into a dark, fanatic plan to restore the life and traditions of the ancient city of Zelopolis.