A Deed Without a Name

By turns hilarious and heartbreaking, A Deed Without a Name is Henry Catenacci's tale of an unlikely friendship. It's 1990, and Andrew, a shy, young, gay and painfully neurotic businessman, finds himself stuck in recession-ridden New York City with nothing but a pile of old books and a dog named Harry. City life has not been kind to Andrew, and there's not much he can do about it but suffer like everyone else -- not, that is, until he happens upon Lena, a stout Italian secretary of blunt opinions and indeterminate age with her own long list of grievances against humanity . . . and a penchant for witchcraft.