Gabriel Thackeray Lyndon, a student of ancient Greek literature, after a bitter and fruitless love affair decides to cross the ocean, enthralled by the spirit of Byron's travels. Passing through the most important Mediterranean ports and as he searches for the Greeks of his books, the trajectory of the journey brings the young American to Naxos and from there to Thessaloniki at a time during which the city is being severely tested by a long-term cycle of blood and terrorism. From there, a new wandering begins, this time on land, to the strongholds of Olympus, the Thessalian plain, Aspropotamos, the armatolikia of Roumeli and even to the secluded Mesolongi. Thus, five years of action, reflection and a tyrannical love pass; in addition to the main narrative, these are also described through the pages of a diary, which ends up being important in the following years. In its pages, Byron, the Anonymous Greek, author of the Hellenic Nomarchy, well-known armatoles, the defenders of Mesolongi pass by and are recorded with a sense of romanticism, but more importantly, an inner life is recorded, a philosophical anguish about human destiny and the search for God.
"Nightingale's cake" was a phrase of the Greeks of the Revolution of 1821 that predicated the unattainable, the elusive ideal of beauty, the backbone of dreams and their relationship with the weak of man. The novel uses this word not as a mockery of this vision but rather as a promise to the human destiny that it is entitled to a piece of hope.