The Elevator Life (Book 3 of The Street trilogy)

National Book Award for Young Adult Fiction (2012)

The first lines of The Street Trilogy were put to paper just months after Alexandros Grigoropoulos'(*) death and the ensuing riots (December 2008). It was completed three years later, around the time that the Indignant Citizens Movement began losing its steam (October 2011). During the period in which this book was being written, Greece experienced financial collapse, came under the control of the IMF, while at the same time, it saw the disintegration of all its social institutions, as they had been set up following World War II and redesigned after the restoration of democracy in 1974. The author's aim was to capture a teenager's experience during this period, when «the action» seemed to have moved from the comfort of the living room and a closed circle of friends to the streets and city squares. A teenager who had just had just been deprived of their immortality (Grigoropoulos murder), freedom (IMF), and the pursuit of their dreams (financial crisis).

Athens, May - July 2011. Threat of bankruptcy and rising unemployment are brewing social discontent and anger; political activism is rife, and collectives are formed for the exchange of goods; a young singer meets her untimely end; there is also the everyday business of living:  family affairs, growing pains, love, friendship, disillusionment...

In the midst of it all, boy meets girl, on the last rainy day of spring; he is fleeing the misery of his family home; she is following her political activist father against her will. Their meeting lasts for only two minutes, in which they do not even exchange a word, but they will be left hungering for more. Is it love, despair, need that draws them to each other? Only time can tell – provided there is any time for them.

This emotional roller coaster of a novel follows a group of angry young people who set up their own collective, exchanging goods and engaging in extreme political activism, in a society in search of orientation in times of social and economic crisis.

The two main characters tell their story in the first person, in alternating narratives. This is a tender story about young love; also about identity and the need of young people to liberate themselves from the suffocating clutches of family and articulate their own voice.