Since 2018, when Pat Barker’s The Silence of the Girls and Madeline Miller’s Circe were published, there has been a serious proliferation of myth retellings on the bookshelves! This has been equal parts exciting and challenging as I tried to keep up with them for my PhD on contemporary feminist adaptations of Greek myth. I ended up having to place a cut-off date at the end of 2021, since I wanted to submit in March 2022.
With viva prep and then thesis corrections, I have found myself falling behind on this genre that I’m supposedly the expert in! So here are 5 recent myth retellings that are at the top of my TBR pile.
Maya Deane
This book, OH MY GOD am I excited to read it! It’s a retelling of the Trojan War (which, luckily, I cannot get enough of), but it reimagines Achilles as a trans woman. It’s the familiar story of fame, victory, and inevitable tragedy, but with the wrathful demigod transformed into a demigoddess that does not want to fight as a man, but might if she’s promised gender affirmation and the ability to bear children by Athena.
2. Gender Swapped Greek Myths
Karrie Fransman & Jonathan Plackett
This book does exactly what it says on the cover: reimagines familiar Greek myths with a twist of all the genders. What does this do to the entrenched gender stereotypes and motivations of the gods and heroes?
3. Stone Blind
Natalie Haynes
Popular classicist Natalie Haynes has given us some great books over the years. I’m thinking particularly of A Thousand Ships and Pandora’s Jar. Her newest book is a retelling of Medusa’s myth, and it’s sure to be packed with heart-wrenching, Frankenstein-esque questions like: who is really the monster in this story? (Spoiler: it’s Poseidon)
4. Wake, Siren
Nina MacLaughlin
This book gives a new voice to the women of Ovid’s Metamorphoses. That’s right: every assault, heartbreak, transformation, injustice, liberation, and weird little story is revisited in this novel.
For fans of Charlotte Higgins’ The Greek Myths: A New Retelling, which also takes the Metamorphoses as its starting point.
5. Savage Beasts
Rani Selvarajah
Give me this Medea retelling and give me it now! It’s set in Calcutta in 1757, when Bengal is on the brink of war. The East India Company, led by Sir Peter Chilcott, are advancing and nobody is safe. Meena, the Nawab’s neglected and abused daughter, finds herself falling under the spell of James Chilcott, nephew of Sir Peter, who claims he wants to betray the company. Thus begins Meena’s downfall.
For fans of Susan Stokes-Chapman’s Pandora, where Pandora’s myth is retold in Georgian London, and Fran Ross’ Oreo, that modernises and parodies Theseus’ myth and includes Black vernacular and Yiddish.
6. The Whispering Muse
Laura Purcell
Okay, this one isn’t out yet, but you can pre-order it! At the Mercury Theatre in London's West End, the lead actress Lilith has made a pact with Melpomene, the muse of tragedy in Greek myth, to become the greatest actress to ever grace the stage.
This is serving me Agatha Christie The Mousetrap and the Calliope storyline in The Sandman vibes and I just cannot wait to get my hands on it.
7. Ithaca
Claire North
A retelling of Penelope’s story as she is left behind in Ithaca, when all the men have sailed away to Troy. It’s about the secret lives of women and their relationships with their goddesses. It gives us Penelope’s perspective when she is besieged by suitors and uncertain whether her errant husband will ever return.
I can’t wait to compare Penelope’s characterisation in Ithaca to the versions of her we see in Margaret Atwood’s The Penelopiad and Natalie Haynes’ A Thousand Ships.
8. Paradise
Kae Tempest
After reading Holly McNish’s new version of Antigone and Anne Carson’s Norma Jeane Baker of Troy as well as seeing Kathy McKean’s version of Medea at Glasgow’s Bard in the Botanics, I have a newfound interest in dramatic re-renderings of Greek plays. This one is a new translation / version of Philoctetes, a wounded outcast with a smelly foot. What more could you want?
Remember to support indie bookshops where you can & don’t forget that you probably have a local library nearby. If you sign up with a library, you get access to eBook and audiobook libraries via Libby and Borrowbox.
That being said, if you want to support me and help me to buy some of these books for my research & blog, please consider sending me what you can on Ko-fi
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