Cast in Doubt

?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 seemed a simple case: a young American woman vanishes on the ancient island of Crete. But when crime writer Horace decides to investigate Helen?s quiet life, the facts he uncovers reveal much more. Cast in Doubt is an authoritative novel of two worlds - an aging expatriate?s love of classical simplicity and the disappearance of a decentered subject amid the fecund possibilities of the hyperreal. Elegant, witty and ironic, Lynne Tillman has written an allegory of our times.