Graffiti

Taking lines of graffiti from walls in Athens and London as chapter headings in her intelligent, heartwarming first novel about love and the hurting and, ultimately, healing power of words, Greek writer Harbouri delivers an intriguing story. Middle-aged Athenian Tasos finds himself utterly alone, abandoned by both wife and mistress, largely as a result of his inability to communicate his feelings. He is spotted at a bar by Felix, a young, gay Englishman living in Athens, who ends up taking him home, not for sex but for consolation; Felix exorcises his own grief over a painfully ended relationship as he encourages Tasos to tell the story of his unhappy marriage and failed love affair. The improbable friends become lovers, as Tasos, who had never acquired ""the habit of translating his feelings into thoughts,"" learns from Felix that ""words are for making sense of things with."" Eloquent and personable Felix elucidates Tasos's inner working and narrates many of the chapters; the witty yet compassionate tone of the novel is his, yet other voices are heard. Leonora, Tasos's former mistress, and his ex-wife narrate chapters, as do one friend and one ex-lover of Felix. These different consciousnesses, trying to make themselves understood, trying to listen and understand, come together in Harbouri's deftly orchestrated humane comedy, which an authorial providence brings to a happy conclusion. (Oct.)