Alex Doukas had big dreams, but at 45 his life is in ruins. Now he's trying to make sense of his failure. His quest takes him past Mile End in the fifties, when young Greeks like his parents flocked to Montreal, back to war-torn Athens and a girl hiding under a bed. Then forward again, through the torments of youth, to flight from his immigrant ghetto - and the turbulent romance that leads to a violent unravelling, even as his parents spiral to their dooms.But if life is anguish, nobody else got the memo: not the old Greek men in their windbreakers trumpeting for Achilles, not the unstoppable force that is a Greek mother offering drinks to an unthirsty boy, not the supremely wise 10 year old with brothers as he lectures on female anatomy. Because Mile End doesn't slow down for something as familiar as tragedy.A Foreign Country explores the burdens of history, the bonds of tribe and family, and the ferocious pull of love. And from one man's tale of failure, something wondrous unfolds: a profound, moving, sometimes tragic, often hilarious, portrait of a family and panorama of an age.