The great Hellenist Edmund Keeley writes a book where History becomes literature and then personal revelation. Presenting a composition of personal memories, literary criticism, and interpretive narration, he argues that the dedication of a literary companionship in the 1940s kept the allure of Greece alive in the West, at a time when German occupation, the Civil War, and mass tourism threatened to destroy everything they had loved.

Henry Miller and Lawrence Durrell meet George Seferis, George Katsimbalis, and other writers of the legendary generation of the 1930s in Greece. Together, under the heavy threat of war, they seek the meaning of Greek life, freedom, and art - and show determination to recreate paradise. Discussing endlessly in Athenian taverns, wandering around the Peloponnese, and swimming in the islands, Miller and Durrell free themselves from the creative despair they were sinking into at that time, while their Greek friends reaffirm the vitality of their homeland.