Helens: Not Necessarily About Sex

This entertaining collection of stories revolves around themes of love and arts, including painting, writing, history, mythology, and conversation, along with reflections on chess, cuisine, confectionary, travel, and literature, all set at the turn of the 21st century, before the rising of social media and the ubiquity of internet culture. A more innocent time, perhaps. Though the stories are related and certain echoes among them, with one exception the characters inhabit separate narratives.

The longest piece, essentially a novella, tells the story of a couple honeymooning in Italy, who come across a manuscript that's purported to be a personal diary of Francesco del Giocondo, a husband of Lisa del Giocondo, the reputed model for the portrait known as the Mona Lisa. Does this prove Mona Lisa's real identity? Is the manuscript the find of a lifetime, or just another con job inflicted upon a hapless tourist? The story, which alternates between the text of the diary and events of the honeymoon, raises questions about identities not just historical but also personal for the newlyweds in Italy. Like the other stories, this novella challenges character's beliefs about the nature of art and their relationships.