How long had it been since I read a book by a contemporary Greek author and reread it immediately after finishing it for the first time!!! It wasn't just reading another book, it was a real experience.

In "Heavenly Bicycles," a group of four teenagers, secretly and riding their BMX bikes, cover 286 kilometers from Patras to a notorious camping site in Finikounda. There they are greeted by the mysterious owner of the campsite, Takis. Twenty years later and ten years after the unexplained loss of one friend, the cursed soil of the campsite calls them back, this time to find answers to their tormenting questions. But at what cost? [from the back cover]

Thematically, the plot (reading the summary on the back cover) took me to the end of the 80s, when as a teenager I enjoyed watching a favorite series on ERT, "At the Camping." The unconscious nostalgia for that era, the references to familiar places for me (due to my origin), and of course the element of mystery challenged me to start reading the book immediately.
Everything in the story begins when a group of four 13-year-olds, Stathis, Michalis, Spyros, and Christos, leave Patras, secretly from their parents, cycling to a camping site in Finikounda - the reference to Stephen King (the body - cinematic adaptation stand by me) is inevitable. Twenty-two years later, and ten years after the mysterious death of one of the four friends, they decide to return to the campsite to find an answer to the question that haunts them. The invitation - challenge to return to the campsite in order to find answers comes mysteriously.
Obviously, the prevailing atmosphere in the story is mystery and the main theme is the urgent need to unravel and answer the inexplicable death of one of the four teenagers. However, the great power of the story is not only in the ingenuity of the subject. That is the backbone of course. With the occasion of the teenager's death and the insatiable psychological demand to give answers, the author presents the different characters of the heroes dynamically through their behavior and way of thinking as shaped by what they experienced at the campsite and which defined them as adults. The "encounter" with death (unexplained death of a friend, suicide of a loved one, supernatural experience with the afterlife) brings them face to face with borderline, existential, philosophical questions that they are obliged to answer in order to move on with their lives. The specter of man's existential crisis dominates the story, is given through the different treatment by the three friends, who as they grow and mature form different personalities, and is approached through the prism of psychoanalysis in a subtle, discreet, and sensitive way (it is evident that the author is knowledgeable in Psychology - we hear Carl Yung and Irvin Yalom). The supernatural element is so dominant but also so organically embedded in the story that even the master of supernatural mystery films M. Night Shyamalan would envy it.
The reader, as if through a cinematic camera, watches with bated breath the natural and supernatural events (e.g. the conception and feeling of astral travel of a teenager in a parallel universe), the dystopian events (e.g. The stunning, captivating scene of a mother's suicide) but also the tender, romantic, sensual shots and ends without realizing it - through the identification or disagreement or even conflict with the choices of the heroes - to take a stand and answer (?) to the relentless, tormenting questions of life: the meaning of existence, the price of knowledge, death, the power of love as an answer to death, the value of sacrifice, the consequences of our choices on ourselves and others.
The author skillfully handles the chronological levels. The natural sequence of events in the narrative is constantly violated while flashbacks shed light on dark aspects of the story and freeze time intensifying the reader's agony with an uninterrupted Hitchcockian suspense that captivates you and doesn't let you stop reading. The detailed, photographic descriptions (a la Woody Allen) of landscapes, geographical points, and of course people, characters, events, make you forget that you are reading a book and make you feel like you are watching a stunning movie.
The great Steven Spielberg once said that people have forgotten how to tell a story, as stories no longer have a middle or an end. They usually have a beginning that never stops beginning. The author of "Heavenly Bicycles" narrates with a wonderful contemporary Greek writing style a story with a disruptive in medias res beginning, a revealing middle, and a captivating end. "Heavenly Bicycles" is a work with existential extensions, perhaps existentially dystopian, a coming-of-age novel in a way. Stanley Kubrick used to say that he always looked for a screenplay that was more like music than imagination. To be a progression of desires and emotions. The subject, what lies behind the emotion, the meaning, all these to come later. All these are "Heavenly Bicycles"!

FOTINI PAPADOPOULOU, LITERARY, TEXT EDITOR, EDUCATOR