Sign-In
Cart
The Archaic Smile
Paperback
General FictionLiterary Fiction
Publisher: Signed, Sealed, & Delivered
Published: Jun 2 2026
Pages: 208
Weight: 0.54
Height: 0.48 Width: 5.50 Depth: 8.50
Language: English
A classics professor who feels a need to get away from it all boards a plane one summer, traveling to Southeast Asia and carrying far more baggage than the suitcase at his feet.
The previous year has dismantled the life he thought he was living. A painful personal betrayal has ended a long-planned future. His university department has been reduced to a shadow of its former self. The discipline he has devoted his life to studying seems increasingly irrelevant to the modern world. At an age when many people are settling comfortably into familiar routines, he finds himself adrift.
Seeking distance from disappointment, he embarks on a month-long journey through Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos, and Thailand. What began as an escape gradually becomes something else: a search for meaning among civilizations both ancient and modern.
As he moves through bustling cities, forgotten temples, crowded markets, jungle ruins, museums, cafés, and sacred sites, the traveler reflects on history, mortality, love, memory, and the strange ways in which human beings construct identities for themselves.
Yet the landscapes he explores are more than merely exotic backdrops. The monuments of Angkor, the imperial cities of Vietnam, the temples of Thailand, and the rapidly changing skylines of Southeast Asia force him to confront questions that have haunted him for years. Why do civilizations rise and fall? What remains after loss? How much of who we are depends upon the stories we tell ourselves? And can a person whose life has come apart discover a new direction without first abandoning the old map?
Throughout the journey, the narrator returns repeatedly to the image of the archaic smile, that mysterious expression found on archaic Greek statues, poised somewhere between joy and sadness, confidence and uncertainty, serenity and concealment. The smile becomes a metaphor for the face he presents to the world and for the complicated truths hidden beneath it.
Part travel narrative, part philosophical reflection, and part story of personal reinvention, The Archaic Smile explores what happens when a scholar of the ancient world finds himself forced to live through his own period of upheaval and transformation.
Rich in history, culture, humor, and keen observation, the novel invites readers to travel across continents while accompanying one man on a deeply human journey through disappointment, resilience, and renewal.
For anyone who has ever watched a carefully constructed life begin to crack, questioned the path that brought them to the present, or sought wisdom in places far from home, The Archaic Smile offers a thoughtful and moving exploration of what it means to begin again.
Also from
Buller, Jeffrey L.
The ATLAS Guide to Promoting Collegiality in Higher Education
Cipriano, Robert E.
Buller, Jeffrey L.
Paperback
Authentic Academic Leadership: A Values-Based Approach to College Administration
Buller, Jeffrey L.
Hardcover
Managing Time and Stress: A Guide for Academic Leaders to Accomplish What Matters
Buller, Jeffrey L.
Hardcover
Hire the Right Faculty Member Every Time: Best Practices in Recruiting, Selecting, and Onboarding College Professors
Buller, Jeffrey L.
Hardcover
The ATLAS Guide to Emotional Intelligence in Higher Education
Buller, Jeffrey L.
Cipriano, Robert E.
Paperback
The ATLAS Guide to Shared Governance in Higher Education
Buller, Jeffrey L.
Cipriano, Robert E.
Paperback
The ATLAS Guide to Effective Meetings in Higher Education
Cipriano, Robert E.
Buller, Jeffrey L.
Paperback
The ATLAS Guide to Career Development in Higher Education
Buller, Jeffrey L.
Cipriano, Robert E.
Paperback
The ATLAS Guide to Conflict Management in Higher Education
Cipriano, Robert E.
Buller, Jeffrey L.
Paperback
The ATLAS Guide to Coaching and Mentoring in Higher Education
Cipriano, Robert E.
Buller, Jeffrey L.
Paperback
The ATLAS Guide to Effective Communication in Higher Education
Cipriano, Robert E.
Buller, Jeffrey L.
Paperback
The ATLAS Guide to Leadership for Introverts in Higher Education
Cipriano, Robert E.
Buller, Jeffrey L.
Paperback
Managing Time and Stress: A Guide for Academic Leaders to Accomplish What Matters
Buller, Jeffrey L.
Paperback
Confronting Today's Issues: Opportunities and Challenges for School Administrators
Buller, Jeffrey L.
Prosser, Chad
Spirou, Denise
Hardcover
Hire the Right Faculty Member Every Time: Best Practices in Recruiting, Selecting, and Onboarding College Professors
Buller, Jeffrey L.
Paperback
Authentic Academic Leadership: A Values-Based Approach to College Administration
Buller, Jeffrey L.
Paperback
Going for the Gold: How to Become a World-Class Academic Fundraiser
Reeves, Dianne M.
Buller, Jeffrey L.
Paperback
World-Class Fundraising Isn't a Solo Sport: The Team Approach to Academic Fundraising
Buller, Jeffrey L.
Reeves, Dianne M.
Paperback
Confronting Today's Issues: Opportunities and Challenges for School Administrators
Spirou, Denise
Buller, Jeffrey L.
Prosser, Chad
Paperback
Evaluating Boards and Administrators: Promoting Greater Accountability in Higher Education
Buller, Jeffrey L.
Paperback
Free Speech and Campus Civility: Promoting Challenging but Constructive Dialog in Higher Education
Cipriano, Robert E.
Buller, Jeffrey L.
Hardcover
Evaluating Boards and Administrators: Promoting Greater Accountability in Higher Education
Buller, Jeffrey L.
Hardcover
Free Speech and Campus Civility: Promoting Challenging but Constructive Dialog in Higher Education
Buller, Jeffrey L.
Cipriano, Robert E.
Paperback
The ATLAS Guide to Work/Life Balance in Higher Education
Cipriano, Robert E.
Buller, Jeffrey L.
Paperback
Going for the Gold: How to Become a World-Class Academic Fundraiser
Buller, Jeffrey L.
Reeves, Dianne M.
Hardcover
World-Class Fundraising Isn't a Solo Sport: The Team Approach to Academic Fundraising
Buller, Jeffrey L.
Reeves, Dianne M.
Hardcover
Also in
Literary Fiction
Elizabeth Spencer: Novels & Stories (Loa #344): The Voice at the Back Door / The Light in the Piazza / Knights and Dragons / Stories
Spencer, Elizabeth
Hardcover
James Fenimore Cooper: The Leatherstocking Tales Vol. 1 (Loa #26): The Pioneers / The Last of the Mohicans / The Prairie
Cooper, James Fenimore
Hardcover
The Underworld U.S.A. Trilogy, Volume I: American Tabloid, the Cold Six Thousand; Introduction by Thomas Mallon
Ellroy, James
Hardcover
The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde and Other Stories (Barnes & Noble Classics Series)
Stevenson, Robert Louis
Paperback
Philip Roth: Novels 1973-1977 (Loa #165): The Great American Novel / My Life as a Man / The Professor of Desire
Roth, Philip
Hardcover
The Patrick Melrose Novels: Never Mind, Bad News, Some Hope, and Mother's Milk
St Aubyn, Edward
Paperback