Manos, a coffin maker in Athens in '41, wakes up in the hospital after his suicide attempt. Under his room's window, the German army crosses the streets of the capital as the victor, yet this invasion feels liberating to him. National defeat, in an unexpected way, transforms into his redemption, leading him from his personal darkness to a new truth.

In the following months, the grip of the Occupation tightens inhumanely, the city starves, and the dead remain unburied on the frozen streets. Then Manos confronts his guilt, secrets, and buried love as he devises a plan to regain himself.

What can keep us standing when everything collapses? A deeply optimistic novel about the power that life finds to move forward.