"Washing Dishes at Mikines" consists of two novellas. The title story tells of a young, disaffected American man who in 1972 finds himself stranded in a rather odd Greek village, and what he learns of life there. "Sarah Leaving" is the story of a love affair on an idyllic Greek island and of its failure. Alan Fish has lived in many places in North America and in Europe, and spent many years in Greece. He now lives in a small city in Northern New England. He drinks whiskey in the winter because he finds beer chills him in the cold, and beer in the summer because whiskey affects him badly in the heat.