Cast in Doubt

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 wants to write the Great American Novel.

‘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 wants to write the Great American Novel, Household Gods, and who in the meantime supports himself by dashing off detective stories.

Horace’s young Greek lover often annoys him, provides little sa