Safe Return Doubtful

translated from the Greek by Peter Levi – first published in 1903

Though at 144 pages, so it meets my definition of a novella (..less than 150..), there is so much packed into this, that on completing it, it feels like I’ve read something much longer.

It’s an underrated gem, so much so, that I struggled to track down a reasonably priced used copy. First published in Greek in 1903 I read the NYRB translation published in 2010.

There structure is familiar, short chapters with plenty going on, spare sentences, and an ending that doesn’t twist or surprise; but there’s far more going on than that.

Hadoula is a typical ‘lonely old woman’, spending her time washing clothes, moaning about pretty much everything, and praying. Her son-in-law drinks from dawn to dusk each day, and her sons have taken jobs on ships and will never return to Greece. She is however, the titular killer; not thinking twice before carrying out her own version of Christianity, its antithesis, nihilistic and brutal. Hadoula has made a final break with the ethics of her society, but no one suspects her.

This can be read quickly, especially as it’s subject matter is quite bleak, and shelved under the category of dark serial killers, or it can be read more deeply, and it is more disturbing; a meditation on murder, and on the compassionate act of release from the misogynistic brutality of coastal-urban life in Greece in the early 1900s. Hadoula, as she falls into the arms of the law, ultimately ceases to be a character, rather the shadow of her actions, the murders, taking place on an idyllic island and thereby distorting our view of it, resulting in a brutal, hidden dimension – the underlying message of how hard life was for young girls at that time.

My GoodReads score 4 / 5