THE FONDLING OF DETAILS

Cacoyannis offers a literary novel about love and infidelity in London.

Harry Wood is an English painter with a secret. Every Wednesday, he meets a woman he knows only as Lina at a hotel in Paddington in central London; the two have sex and have no interest in a relationship of any sort. What complicates matters is the fact that Harry is married to Max Steffe, the man who helped launch his successful career as an artist. Max comes from a wealthy family and is known for “wielding influence and enormous power over practically anyone and everyone who wanted to be someone in the Arts.” Harry loves Max, but it hasn’t stopped him from secretly carrying on his weekly affair for almost two years. One of Harry’s most popular paintings is of an unhoused man he knows who calls himself Gregor Horak and has an affinity for the work of Franz Kafka; Harry and Max help to get Gregor back on his feet and to achieve his dream of becoming a famous writer. They also help a friend of Gregor’s, a budding artist who goes by the name Slimboy. Things take a turn, though, when Harry gets jury duty for a murder trial. By chance, Lina is assigned to the same jury, and Harry learns from another juror, musician Jefferson Stone, that Lina is a famous documentary filmmaker. A guilty Harry stops seeing Lina, but he wonders how to break the news of the past affair to Max; to make matters even more complex, he also finds himself starting to have feelings for Jefferson. However, it soon becomes clear that his relationship with Lina may not end as easily as he thought.  

Cacoyannis’ narrative focuses on Harry, who narrates the tale as he navigates the strange circumstances in which he finds himself. The story is most compelling when he discovers new facts that throw his assumptions into disarray—such as when he finds out new information from a clerk at the hotel where he has his trysts with Lina, or when it becomes clear that the first time Harry met Lina may not have been an accident. Although the novel has a fairly large cast of characters, the author effectively distinguishes each of them with small details, such as Jefferson’s hand tattoos or Lina’s penchant for the novel Lolita. However, for a narrative that involves so much deception, the novel has a tendency to repeat things that readers already know. For example, when Harry and Lina set up their first rendezvous, she explains that “There’s this hotel I know. Out of the way. Very discreet. I could meet you there next Wednesday afternoon if you like”—although, by this point in the story, readers already have intimate knowledge of every detail of the Wednesday schedule. Nonetheless, readers will find themselves slowly becoming invested in what will happen to these disparate people—who, after all, will wind up with who? Such questions keep the story alive and moving, all the way to its conclusion.

A well-balanced drama about memorable lovers and their uncomfortable secrets.