Andreas Karavitis lives on caffeine, rooftop banter, and the conviction that nothing matters. Then a shawl left on a church step, a dog-eared copy of The Ladder of Divine Ascent found under a park bench, and a broken generator in a hilltop monastery begin to pull him from noise into attention. Between a stern father, a translator mother, and friends who dodge their own silences with jokes, Andreas learns to stand, to listen, and to work with his hands until what’s broken hums again. As he returns each Saturday to the monastery of Saint Lukian—and later hears the call of a forgotten island—Andreas must decide whether surrender is escape or courage. The Left Side of the Church is a luminous, wry, and deeply human novel about faith and doubt, male friendship, inherited grief, and the stubborn grace that seeps through the cracks we’d rather hide. For readers of literary spiritual fiction who prefer presence to preaching—and redemption that arrives quietly, like light in a cold room.