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'Crafted to perfection and endlessly readable . . . a writer whose career we should all be watching with a keen eye'
Goodreads
'Hauntingly poignant . . . Ghost Flight got under my skin and broke my heart in the way that only well-told stories can do'
Goodreads
'Spellbinding . . . Another wonderful read about complex relationships from Eva Asprakis'
Goodreads
August, 2005.
High-school sweethearts Aristos and Agathi, and Petros and Melina, are the best of friends, until Aristos declares that he is leaving Cyprus for university.
Seven years later, Aristos returns with his new girlfriend, Wendy, to find Petros and Melina engaged, and Agathi still hung up on him.
As the estranged friends become reacquainted, their worlds come apart. All of them have wrongs to right, but with Cyprus hurtling towards the worst aviation disaster in its history, they might have less time than they think.
Book Club Questions
1) Aside from Helios Airways Flight 522, Ghost Flight's characters are haunted by flights both taken and not taken at key points in their lives. How many 'ghost flights' do you think are in the book, and how significant is Flight 522 among them?
2) Burdened with the weight of family secrets, Aristos leaves attentive Agathi and 'likes Wendy because she is incurious . . . with no interest in other people or their pasts'. How much, if at all, do you think Aristos's intergenerational trauma hinders his relationship with Wendy? Without it, would he have become more emotionally involved with her, or is he drawn to her because she doesn't ask that of him?
3) As she grows closer to Wendy and her thinking evolves, Melina questions whether she ever truly loved Petros or if she just felt 'safe' being with him. Do you think her rewriting their history like this is valid? Is it fair?
4) Viewing art as 'the only true love of her life', Wendy makes seemingly rash and hurtful decisions in search of inspiration. Do you think this kind of selfishness is part of being an artist, or is she using her art as an excuse to be selfish?
5) How, if at all, do you think Petros's being raised by women has shaped him?
6) In the dialogue in parts one and three of the book, Greek-language words are italicized. In part four, English-language words are italicized. In part two, no words are italicized. Why do you think the writer made this choice, and how do you think each character's experiences of Cyprus and Britain affect their perceptions of who is an outsider and what is foreign?
7) Petros and Melina have been together since they were teenagers and struggle with their respective paths not taken, while Aristos and Wendy met several years older and must contend with the longer, more complex histories that they have each accumulated. Which relationship dynamic do you think presents tougher challenges, and why?
8) How much, if at all, did the four-perspective structure of the book enable you to empathize with each character? Which one did you connect with most, and why?
9) Despite being a towering figure in all the protagonists' lives, Agathi remains largely unseen. How much of the other characters' preoccupation with Agathi is about her, and how much is about what she represents to them?
10) By the end of the book, each of the protagonists has resolved to make a change in their lives. If their flight hadn't ended so tragically, where do you think they would be now?
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