by Lynne Tillman
published 10 September 2026
‘Like Helen I kept a diary when I was young. It was nothing like Helen’s. I tried faithfully to record the events of the day, to describe what I was reading and thinking and to scrutinize and explicate my reactions and so on. She does little or none of this.’
It is 1974. American and English expatriates, artists, writers, and eccentrics find their home in a quiet town on the island of Crete. Among them is Horace Vaughn, a sixty-five-year-old gay American writer who has long been at work on Household Gods, his attempt at the Great American Novel, and who in the meantime supports himself by dashing off detective stories.
Horace’s young Greek lover often annoys him, provides little satisfaction, and Horace idles his time away with alcohol, friends, and machinations.
That is, until a young, enigmatic nineteen-year-old American woman named Helen arrives, another outsider. In Helen, Horace discovers someone brilliant, beautiful, and stubbornly mysterious. He is fascinated by her punk style and elusive pose. In this small town, gossip spreads fast, and Helen’s past begins to follow her to Crete: a suicidal ex-lover appears without warning, and there are whispers of her long-dead sister. The Henry Moore crowd dislike her, and a Greek waiter’s wife threatens to murder her.
When Helen vanishes, Horace is determined to follow her, to find her, especially her diary. His journey around Crete in his beat-up VW bug is funny and poignant, and for Horace, the mystery continues.