Speaker 1: Hi, Hello, and welcome.
Speaker 2: This is Let's talk about Miss Baby and I am
Speaker 2: your host, live here with another conversation episode. I spent
Speaker 2: a couple of months back in the fall just recording
Speaker 2: an absurd number of conversations and we are still getting
Speaker 2: through them.
Speaker 1: So it's always kind of wild to like listen back
Speaker 1: and be like, oh, I talked to this person in
Speaker 1: like September, but it is fresh for all of you
Speaker 1: and so joyful. But I also just feel like the
Speaker 1: need to say that, because you know, a lot of
Speaker 1: stuff changes in that time, and honestly, this one might
Speaker 1: have even been from August. Like it has been a
Speaker 1: whole collection, a whole host of recordings, and it has
Speaker 1: been so much fun. So this week I sat down
Speaker 1: with Catherine Buttner, who is the author of Alcestis. Yes,
Speaker 1: that's right. Coincidentally, like honestly, completely unintentionally, I had this
Speaker 1: episode scheduled for right after re airing my Alcestis episodes,
Speaker 1: and I just thought, you know how incredibly perfect but
Speaker 1: very appropriately. Also, this novel Alcestis was actually written like
Speaker 1: years ago. It actually was first published before even The
Speaker 1: Song of Achilles, and I think that is so fascinating.
Speaker 1: That is part of what Catherine and I talked about,
Speaker 1: in addition to just the absolutely incredible and weird story
Speaker 1: of Alcestis, that she turned into this amazing novel and
Speaker 1: it utterly it just it's fascinating. This introduction is unscripted
Speaker 1: because I'm hanging on by a thread, and it was
Speaker 1: necessary but absolutely fascinating to have this novel be written
Speaker 1: before the enormous boom in Greek myth retellings, and that
Speaker 1: is why it is being rereleased, or rather was re
Speaker 1: released back in September, so it is widely available now
Speaker 1: again now that it is like right back in the zeitgeist.
Speaker 1: It's also sort of a fascinating retelling on Alcestis plays
Speaker 1: with the sexuality of the characters, all of these different
Speaker 1: things and this myth that is just so underrated. I
Speaker 1: will not try rambling anymore. Just sit back and enjoy
Speaker 1: this wonderful conversation I had Catherine and I had a
Speaker 1: joy of a time. By the end, weird, it was
Speaker 1: so much fun. You're going to love it. Alcestis is
Speaker 1: so cool and weird. Her story is wild. Conversations giving
Speaker 1: a voice to the very specifically voiceless Alcestis with Catherine butner,
Speaker 1: your book is kind of unique in that you're getting
Speaker 1: it re published right or whatever the correct word is
Speaker 1: because of this retelling kind of boom?
Speaker 3: But how old?
Speaker 1: Like when did you originally publish it?
Speaker 3: So, I mean, this is this is strange because it
Speaker 3: Do you want me to just like lay out the
Speaker 3: book timeline a little bit? Yeah, it's not complicated, but
Speaker 3: because I started this book actually in two thousand and four,
Speaker 3: freakitionally enough, so almost twenty years ago, which is a
Speaker 3: terrifying thing for me to think about for my own mortality.
Speaker 3: But yeah, it was. It was. I started it just
Speaker 3: before I went into my grad program for creative writing,
Speaker 3: and it was my master's thesis, so I was working
Speaker 3: on it in that program. I finished that program in
Speaker 3: two thousand and six, and the book sold in two
Speaker 3: thousand and eight and came out in twenty ten originally,
Speaker 3: So it really the only retelling that I was super
Speaker 3: I mean, there were a few, the only one that
Speaker 3: I was really aware of, and it came out just
Speaker 3: before this book did, so I did not read it
Speaker 3: until much later. Was Levigna.
Speaker 1: Or Lavinya in Yeah, I forget about that one.
Speaker 3: Oh it's so good. It's one of my favorites, especially
Speaker 3: pre Madeline Miller and uh, and then I guess Margaret
Speaker 3: Atwood had done the Penelope ad.
Speaker 1: Maybe yeah, at that point I think, yeah, that one, but.
Speaker 3: I honestly still haven't read it.
Speaker 1: It's good, so yeah, yeah, that's well. And then Song
Speaker 1: of Achilles was like twenty eleven, right, so you really
Speaker 1: got in like right before yeah.
Speaker 3: Yeah, just before she created the genre and like built
Speaker 3: the zeitgeist. I was like, why don't I just publish
Speaker 3: this book before anyone's paying attention.
Speaker 1: Well, it's so interesting because one like there there are
Speaker 1: a number of retellings you know, that existed before then,
Speaker 1: but there wasn't like this the genre that exists now,
Speaker 1: because like people talk a lot about Mary Renault, which
Speaker 1: I've not read any of hers, but they have a couple.
Speaker 1: And then there's also and I'm looking at my bookshelf
Speaker 1: right now, if I'm looking away from you, that's why. Oh,
Speaker 1: Emily Howser I think had written some before that as well,
Speaker 1: again which I have not read, but I own. But
Speaker 1: even Song of Achilles was like big when it came out,
Speaker 1: but then so much bigger later. It's a great it's
Speaker 1: kind of fascinating. I also just to connect myself to
Speaker 1: this before the boom thing started writing in mythological retelling
Speaker 1: but still does not exist. But I did start it
Speaker 1: and finish a first draft in two thousand and eight,
Speaker 1: so I also tried to be ahead of the game.
Speaker 1: We were there, we were doing.
Speaker 3: That, you know. I think what's interesting about it is
Speaker 3: the fact that it wasn't I mean, people really had
Speaker 3: no idea how to categorize this book when I was so,
Speaker 3: you know, I mentioned it was done, and it was
Speaker 3: I finished the first you know, it was. It was
Speaker 3: ready for publishers to look at it by two thousand
Speaker 3: and six, and it took two years to sell. And
Speaker 3: I think it was partly because I got a ton
Speaker 3: of feedback from publishers that was sort of, this is
Speaker 3: so lovely, we have no idea what to do with it. Yeah,
Speaker 3: And I really I think that that was partially. It's
Speaker 3: really interesting to me to observe how there's essentially been
Speaker 3: a subgenre created for these mythological retellings, and I think
Speaker 3: even even sometimes for specifically queerer retellings, and it just
Speaker 3: that didn't exist at the time, and until Madeleine Miller's
Speaker 3: I think it was. I mean, I guess Circe is
Speaker 3: not as explicitly queer as Song of Achilles. I'm trying
Speaker 3: to remember. It's been a minute since I read it,
Speaker 3: and I love both of them. But I also think
Speaker 3: that the fact that the book is at the time.
Speaker 3: I think when I told people it was a retelling,
Speaker 3: they were surprised that it was not a retelling set
Speaker 3: in a different time interesting, you know, that it wasn't
Speaker 3: like a modern retelling or like what if you take
Speaker 3: the story of Alcestis and you put it in the
Speaker 3: nineteen forties or something like that. Like, I think they
Speaker 3: expected a retelling it was. I think it was partly
Speaker 3: coming out of the sort of nineties like I don't know,
Speaker 3: Bazzlerman Romeo plus Juliette sort of.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 3: People were like, what do you mean, it's a retelling
Speaker 3: and nobody's wearing Aloha shirts, you know. So I think
Speaker 3: people were thrown by the fact that it was a
Speaker 3: retelling that was in the actual time period, and also
Speaker 3: that it was treating the gods as actually real and
Speaker 3: present that they were, you know, that that they that
Speaker 3: something that we would think of as fantastical was treated
Speaker 3: as just realist. I think that also just wasn't as
Speaker 3: common then that there were if you had retellings, they
Speaker 3: tended to kind of be like a gritty retelling where
Speaker 3: you don't know if the gods are actually real or not,
Speaker 3: kind of saying, yeah, so I think those were two
Speaker 3: things at that seemed completely normal now and weren't just
Speaker 3: not as frequent.
Speaker 1: Yeah, well it makes sense because if you even think
Speaker 1: about like Troy, which would have been fairly recent at
Speaker 1: that time, like just completely writes out the gods out
Speaker 1: of the iliad, I mean, quote unquote the iliod uh
Speaker 1: and yeah, whatever it wants to call the iliot. Yeah,
Speaker 1: so it's interesting, and you know, it's funny you say
Speaker 1: that because and like you know, there are so many now,
Speaker 1: but I still think the majority of retellings these days
Speaker 1: don't feature a lot of actual gods, you know, doing
Speaker 1: super normal things. Like they still tend to focus a
Speaker 1: lot on the mortals and like not exclusively for sure,
Speaker 1: but yeah, primarily it's still literally heavily on the mortals. Okay,
Speaker 1: before we like, I could just keep talking about retellings forever,
Speaker 1: but I want you to give like an idea about
Speaker 1: what Well, sorry, now, I'm gonna jump around. Also, I
Speaker 1: have ADHD just a warning, no worries, but so one
Speaker 1: just point of clarification for my listeners. I'm gonna say
Speaker 1: Alcestis because I always had have, but I recognize that
Speaker 1: Alcestis is also a valid pronunciation in English. But Alcestis
Speaker 1: is so a unique play to choose, like of all
Speaker 1: Greek mythology. So my background on Alcestis is that I
Speaker 1: had not read it until a year year and a
Speaker 1: half ago. I just kind of assumed it was like,
Speaker 1: you know, like any other Euripides play, and he is
Speaker 1: notoriously my favorite, I will defend him to within an
Speaker 1: inch of my life, but I just had not read
Speaker 1: Alcestis and just thought it was kind of like all
Speaker 1: the others. And then I've read it, and I just
Speaker 1: lost my mind because it is the most bizarre and
Speaker 1: weird and like just magnificent play. But like, yes, yeah,
Speaker 1: why Alcestis, and like it's just so specific and also
Speaker 1: not well known. So I just want to hear more
Speaker 1: about like that part.
Speaker 3: Absolutely yes, And I will probably go back and forth
Speaker 3: because I was also used to saying Alcestis. I was
Speaker 3: a classics major and a Greek focus of course in
Speaker 3: undergrad and then I've had to accustom myself because all
Speaker 3: the book people wanted it to you know, they wanted
Speaker 3: to romanize the spellings and they wanted to know. But
Speaker 3: at the time, again, this wasn't a thing. So I think,
Speaker 3: I bet, I bet, I could have won that fight now,
Speaker 3: but at the time I was like, but my case.
Speaker 1: My case, yeah, well, especially that one, because that one
Speaker 1: was like, you know, there's a lot where it is
Speaker 1: awkward in English to make a latinized see a hard
Speaker 1: sound like I get that, but Alcestis feels like that's yeah,
Speaker 1: that's not one of them.
Speaker 3: I agree, I agree. So I'm going to probably call
Speaker 3: her Alcastis for this, just because it sounds nicer. I yeah,
Speaker 3: so my history with that too. I was also being
Speaker 3: a Euripides completist, I as you do. I was, yeah,
Speaker 3: because I'm obsessed. My first history of reading the Dramatists
Speaker 3: at all was in high school. I had a really wonderful,
Speaker 3: weird two period class that was taught by both an
Speaker 3: English teacher and history teacher, and that's so fun. They
Speaker 3: decided that we should read all the big three of
Speaker 3: the drama tasts at the beginning and so that was
Speaker 3: the first time I read Euripides, and it just especially
Speaker 3: reading you know, Sophocles and oh my god, I'm gonna blank,
Speaker 3: which is the most embarrassing, thank you, especially because I
Speaker 3: actually likes That's fine, yeah, yes, better than oh god, no,
Speaker 3: I don't like anybody better than Euripides, but I like
Speaker 3: better than Sophocles because I feel like, I mean, in
Speaker 3: my distant memory, my reaction at the time was like,
Speaker 3: look at this, just messy drama in schools, and then
Speaker 3: Sophocles is so focused on I don't know, virtue, you know.
Speaker 1: I think depending on the plays, because I would, like
Speaker 1: I means is uh pretty heavily. But the way they
Speaker 1: teach it, you're right, Like, the way they often teach
Speaker 1: is that it's a very different thing from if you
Speaker 1: just sit down and read it and you're like, this
Speaker 1: is fucked up. You know, so I could see that happening.
Speaker 3: Yeah, that is absolutely true. Absolutely, yeah, So anyway, I think,
Speaker 3: but when I got to Euripides, it felt I don't know,
Speaker 3: I think there's I mean, I'm sure it's not a
Speaker 3: new observation, just that the way that he psychologizes just
Speaker 3: feels so much more modern and it's easier to connect
Speaker 3: with and also the language is so beautiful, and especially
Speaker 3: once I was actually translating from Greek, it just I
Speaker 3: just was super obsessed. So I was actually working my
Speaker 3: crappy part time job after I graduated from college and
Speaker 3: reading Euripides on my lunch breaks, and that was when
Speaker 3: I read the Alcestis and so I, yeah, I had
Speaker 3: essentially the same reaction that you did. That I had
Speaker 3: just been reading it because I was trying to read
Speaker 3: all the Euripides, and I was boggled by it and
Speaker 3: by how weird it was, and how how and believable
Speaker 3: the fight between Admotus and his father is, but how
Speaker 3: how not sympathetic he is in any other way, and
Speaker 3: just by Alcestis as a figure and how absent she is.
Speaker 3: I think that was what really got me at the time.
Speaker 3: And I was just I was also, you know, I
Speaker 3: was like twenty two, I was coming out of a
Speaker 3: fan fiction writing background, so filling in the gaps was
Speaker 3: something that I was very accustomed to doing. And I
Speaker 3: was just really intrigued by the fact that it was
Speaker 3: the only harrowing of hell story that I could think
Speaker 3: of in Greek mythology that has a female character going
Speaker 3: to the underworld voluntarily, so you know, because you know
Speaker 3: the Odysseus story and Orpheus, and there are lots and
Speaker 3: lots of other instances and heracles. Obviously, there are lots
Speaker 3: of instances of male figures going to the underworld and
Speaker 3: making their way back out and choosing to be there.
Speaker 3: But I just was really struck by the notion that
Speaker 3: Euripides was telling this story about a woman who voluntarily
Speaker 3: went to the underworld and spent three days there at
Speaker 3: least in surface time with a goddess who was kidnapped
Speaker 3: and taken to the underworld, and that's not in the
Speaker 3: play at all, And that just seemed like such a
Speaker 3: huge missed opportunity to me, and not I mean, not
Speaker 3: that Euripides misses opportunities, like come on, that's not the
Speaker 3: story he's interested in telling, but I was curious about it.
Speaker 1: M I love the Europes defense because the thing about
Speaker 1: the Alceste is like, one, yes, that's so true, and
Speaker 1: she is so unique, and like, I think there's I
Speaker 1: think I'm sure that people have made the argument that, like,
Speaker 1: you know, she's some kind of missing figure in a
Speaker 1: way that is like a fault of eurypites. But it's
Speaker 1: so clear how intentional he's being with it, like it
Speaker 1: is a tragic comedy in the way no one is
Speaker 1: no other play of his is like he is writing
Speaker 1: this to be funny. There is a moment where Heracles
Speaker 1: wrestles death like it is funny. And so I think
Speaker 1: he made this point of being like this woman is
Speaker 1: dramatic in a way that I'm not focusing on here,
Speaker 1: like her story is actually tragic. I'm interested in how
Speaker 1: absurd her husband is and how much the man cannot
Speaker 1: take responsibility for any single thing that he does. And
Speaker 1: then yeah, and meanwhile, yeah, we just get to like
Speaker 1: imagine what happens with her. So I love the idea
Speaker 1: of then focusing on her as a character. And yeah,
Speaker 1: because clearly Eripanies was like Nana, Like I've got weird
Speaker 1: other things to say. Also, the fact that it's his
Speaker 1: earliest surviving play is one of my favorite pieces. Like
Speaker 1: he's just so weird. I love him so much.
Speaker 3: Yes, agreed a million percent. Yeah, I mean again, this
Speaker 3: is another like dating myself pop culture example. But I
Speaker 3: feel like I was also so I was the exact
Speaker 3: same generation of kids who were the age as the
Speaker 3: characters in Buffy the Vampire Slayer.
Speaker 1: Amazing.
Speaker 3: So yeah, So I went to college the same year
Speaker 3: they went to college, you know, and then about ten
Speaker 3: years later my students were the same age as the
Speaker 3: Harry Potter kids. And I have no idea what they're
Speaker 3: the same age as now. I think they're the same
Speaker 3: age as their favorite YouTubers. I don't know whatever, but
Speaker 3: it makes me think of I feel like there were
Speaker 3: a lot of narratives in the nineties, aughts whatever that
Speaker 3: were interested in showing you the sort of minor, like
Speaker 3: elevating the minor characters in some way, and it makes
Speaker 3: me think of a particular I get it just a
Speaker 3: pang whenever I think of anything produced by Jess Whedon
Speaker 3: at this point, because fuck that guy. But also, but
Speaker 3: also there was I don't know if you encountered or remember,
Speaker 3: but there was an episode of Buffy called the Zeppo
Speaker 3: that's just like the A plot is happening in the background, yeah,
Speaker 3: and it's huge and dramatic and things are about to
Speaker 3: blow up as all was or whatever, and then there's
Speaker 3: you know, zamplot that's happening in the foreground and that's
Speaker 3: the whole point of the episode, and it's really clever
Speaker 3: and charming, fucking Jessweden, but whatever. So I feel like
Speaker 3: that there's some like the tragic comic element in the
Speaker 3: play to me, has a bit of that feeling that
Speaker 3: Alcestis is having this huge drama and you know, saying
Speaker 3: these tearful farewells to her children, and even all the
Speaker 3: you know, enslaved people and servants in the palace are
Speaker 3: lamenting and everything, and then Agnotus is just up here
Speaker 3: having a panic attack, and that's kind of funny. Yeah,
Speaker 3: it's very weird.
Speaker 1: Yeah, well, and he's I'm trying to think of what
Speaker 1: translation I read and like how much that might have
Speaker 1: impacted it, because I do, unfortunately have to read in translation.
Speaker 1: I just managed to get a classics degree without learning Greek,
Speaker 1: but this is.
Speaker 3: All I also have to read in translation. At this point.
Speaker 3: My Greek was like twenty years ago, so well it's
Speaker 3: pretty much gone.
Speaker 1: I'm constantly hoping still to find the time to learn it,
Speaker 1: but one of these days. But yeah, I mean, he's
Speaker 1: just so interesting in that, like he he is kind
Speaker 1: of tragic, but also like everything he says is lace
Speaker 1: with this level of absurdity that like it makes him
Speaker 1: so hard to be like, it's so hard to be
Speaker 1: sympathetic towards him because every time he says mething that
Speaker 1: you want to be sympathetic for, he follows it up
Speaker 1: with like something ridiculous. And I, yeah, it's just it's
Speaker 1: such a joyful play, and I don't I make sure
Speaker 1: we don't want to talk about like the only the play,
Speaker 1: but it's just.
Speaker 3: Happy to talk about the play.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's it's just so good. But your appanies is perfect.
Speaker 1: So the things like what kind of I mean, I
Speaker 1: guess I just want to hear more about what your
Speaker 1: plot is. Because of course, the point that all of
Speaker 1: this is making us talking about this is that Alcestis
Speaker 1: basically does not exist in the play. Alcestis she has
Speaker 1: like two lines, and that's the point, and it's interesting
Speaker 1: and even when she's brought back from the underworld, she
Speaker 1: does doesn't say a single word and that's so cool
Speaker 1: and weird. So yeah, like I would have had this
Speaker 1: fully like blank character to work with, so like, what
Speaker 1: did you do and why?
Speaker 3: I guess, yeah, that's a great question, right because in
Speaker 3: the play, I mean her speech and I think this
Speaker 3: hits me very differently now. I was rereading the play
Speaker 3: before we talked, and her soul. First of all, in
Speaker 3: the play she has children. In my novel, I was like, Eh,
Speaker 3: children aren't. I don't want to deal with the child
Speaker 3: having aspect of it, partly because I was interested in
Speaker 3: her as I mean, there's no obviously like historically she
Speaker 3: could very well have had children and still been essentially
Speaker 3: a teenager. But I was interested in the idea of
Speaker 3: her as a teenager, essentially that she is still quite
Speaker 3: young when she's having to make these massive decisions, and
Speaker 3: when she's being faced by these gods who are you know,
Speaker 3: all all powerful or very close to it and capricious
Speaker 3: and unpredictable and all of those things, and just I
Speaker 3: think thinking about what it would have been like to
Speaker 3: be in the social role in mycene and Greece at
Speaker 3: that period of being essentially not really having much of
Speaker 3: a social role other than being a trading piece kind of,
Speaker 3: and then moving into this world where she does have
Speaker 3: to make decisions for herself. So what I thought about was,
Speaker 3: I guess what I wanted to do was really to
Speaker 3: think about that social role. So the first third of
Speaker 3: the novel follows her as a child and then up
Speaker 3: until the moment where she marries Admetus, and for me
Speaker 3: that was actually, I mean, I loved I loved thinking
Speaker 3: about all of it, but I really loved thinking about
Speaker 3: her actual life as well, and what it might have
Speaker 3: felt like to be living in an environment where not
Speaker 3: just the role of the gods but also just the
Speaker 3: restrictiveness of I mean, one of the things that really
Speaker 3: struck me this is when I talk about what I write,
Speaker 3: I say that I write historical novels, but this is
Speaker 3: really a prehistorical novel because we don't actually have written
Speaker 3: history that's you know, decipherable or useful or useful of
Speaker 3: the Macenane period and so and the even the archaeological
Speaker 3: evidence that we have is pretty minimal, and it I'm
Speaker 3: always struck when I see thinking about Mycenian Greece on
Speaker 3: the Greek mainland. And there will probably be experts who
Speaker 3: are listening to your show who are like, she's the wrongest,
Speaker 3: and if that's true, I apologize, But my impression is
Speaker 3: just that the archaeological buildings and evidence that we have
Speaker 3: that remains on the mainland is like not the grandest
Speaker 3: right I mean maybe they were some palaces, but and
Speaker 3: I'm not thinking like Minoan. You know, there's more, You've
Speaker 3: got Creed and you've got more, more beautiful and dramatic
Speaker 3: spaces that have been preserved. But like the things that
Speaker 3: I saw, at least, I was struck by the fact
Speaker 3: that like they're made of like mud brick, like they're
Speaker 3: not you know, sorry, no, I haven't been to any
Speaker 3: of these places yet. Sadly, it's Mycenie.
Speaker 1: I mean, it's not Canosos, but like, but I think
Speaker 1: it is one of the few, so it is a
Speaker 1: bigger palatial structure. But also I love that they use
Speaker 1: the term palatial. But like I think that the clarification
Speaker 1: you're making is like they're I mean, yes, we use
Speaker 1: the word palace, but like, yeah, I mean they're they're
Speaker 1: large structures and it's so interesting because also the Mycenians
Speaker 1: like took over after the Minoans, right, like they conquered
Speaker 1: the Minoans. I think with that lot anyway, I don't know,
Speaker 1: you're like, how what did you do exactly? Because also
Speaker 1: like Canosis is wild anyway, But yeah.
Speaker 3: I.
Speaker 1: Myceny is so fascinating generally, but also I mean, yeah,
Speaker 1: I don't know enough to correct anything.
Speaker 3: I don't know really either. I am not an expert.
Speaker 3: I am a novelist and a diletant. But but I
Speaker 3: guess what struck me was just that, like, you know,
Speaker 3: it's not the most lush environment. Yeah, and it's not
Speaker 3: the I mean, it's a pretty hard scrabble in some places,
Speaker 3: and the buildings are not what I think when a
Speaker 3: lot of people just obviously they think of like classical
Speaker 3: Athenian architecture or something like that, if they think ancient Greece,
Speaker 3: and I just I guess I was just kind of
Speaker 3: struck by the fact that, like, sure, she was wealthy
Speaker 3: and privileged for her time, and she was still living
Speaker 3: in buildings that would have been like pretty bare bones
Speaker 3: to contemporary modern humans. And where she was, I mean
Speaker 3: she goes to she's in Iolcis originally, and then she
Speaker 3: goes to Fury.
Speaker 1: Right, So that's like, yeah, that's even up north too,
Speaker 1: So you're really working with yes, you're nowhere near because
Speaker 1: I was like, Okay, how near is it to the Pelgonese,
Speaker 1: in which case, yeah, like you're dealing with there's almost
Speaker 1: nothing found up there. There was certainly on page structures.
Speaker 3: But yeah, it's not great, so right exactly. So I
Speaker 3: just assumed that, like, I'm sure whatever was there felt
Speaker 3: incredibly impressive at the time, and maybe it would have
Speaker 3: seemed less impressive to someone who's thinking about classical Athens. Yeah,
Speaker 3: so I yeah, I just I was curious to like
Speaker 3: really think about her life and then to think about
Speaker 3: I also. So my background academically later is that I
Speaker 3: have a PhD in eighteenth century British literature basically and
Speaker 3: focused on women writers and the way that that also influenced.
Speaker 3: So that's what I was reading a lot of as
Speaker 3: I was revising this novel, which seems like it would
Speaker 3: have nothing to do with it, but to me, I
Speaker 3: think it actually did. It was really useful to be
Speaker 3: reading about a vastly different time period in which nonetheless
Speaker 3: like men and women are still super segregated, yes, and
Speaker 3: so thinking about like the alien quality of men to
Speaker 3: like the teenage girl at that time, and what it
Speaker 3: would mean to go from just like a super restrictive
Speaker 3: environment like that to the underworld where you're dead and
Speaker 3: no one's watching, you know, and thinking about how that
Speaker 3: would relate to like queerness and sexuality and just a
Speaker 3: feeling of freedom, but also of course, like there's also
Speaker 3: grief and loss. She's looking for her sister who died
Speaker 3: when she was a child and never knew her mother
Speaker 3: and all of that. So yeah, I guess I was
Speaker 3: just really interested in exploring all of those things, and
Speaker 3: the fact that the play does render her such a
Speaker 3: blank slate just meant that I had a ton of
Speaker 3: room to do it. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Yeah, but I love all of this also as somebody who,
Speaker 1: like my BA, was a double major in English lit
Speaker 1: and classics. So like these things are I think people
Speaker 1: would think they're not tied. They're so inextricably tied together,
Speaker 1: particular because of the Victorians. We're so obsessed with ancient grace
Speaker 1: that like.
Speaker 3: The eighteenth century is the neo classical accent. They're obsessed. Yeah,
Speaker 3: So I don't know, I think I weirdly enough, like
Speaker 3: I thought a lot about like Jane Austen and Evelina
Speaker 3: when I was writing this novel, in terms of how,
Speaker 3: like what do a young woman and a young king
Speaker 3: actually do when they get in a room together. I mean,
Speaker 3: if I had thought more about this, maybe I would
Speaker 3: have also anticipated Bridgerton. Yeah, but I just think that,
Speaker 3: like how freaked out they are is dramatic and interesting.
Speaker 1: Yeah, absolutely, And so like my listeners know how I
Speaker 1: feel about some things about Hades and Persephone that I
Speaker 1: don't talk about all that much, but I do love
Speaker 1: Persephone as a character, and I do find their relationship
Speaker 1: after the Americum to Demeter to be quite interesting. So, yeah, like,
Speaker 1: how did you want to handle Persephone and Hades and
Speaker 1: all of.
Speaker 3: That, I would say what I was most interested in
Speaker 3: regarding Persephone is the idea that she is she has
Speaker 3: godly powers, but she's also been put in a circumstance
Speaker 3: where her agency and her choice is limited. Right, she
Speaker 3: has to be in the underworld for a certain time
Speaker 3: age year, she has to be not in the underworld
Speaker 3: for a certain time age year. So regardless of where
Speaker 3: she would prefer to be, it's not her choice. And
Speaker 3: so I saw her as somebody who would be really
Speaker 3: fascinated by Alcestis having the ability to choose to go
Speaker 3: to the underworld and having the ability to choose I
Speaker 3: mean we were talking about in the play, you know,
Speaker 3: as soon. I think the other thing that really inspired
Speaker 3: me to get into this was how horrified Admodus is
Speaker 3: as soon as Alcastis stands up and says she'll go,
Speaker 3: and Euripides is depicting that largely as grief, right, like
Speaker 3: he doesn't want to lose his wife, But it seems,
Speaker 3: I mean, it's clearly also just face saving, right, It's like, hmm,
Speaker 3: patriarchal honor says, you don't let your wife die for
Speaker 3: you meanwhile, and.
Speaker 1: You asked her, So it's light, yeah, like facing that
Speaker 1: after the fact of like, oh well, damn, I god,
Speaker 1: what I wanted? How do I handle this now?
Speaker 3: Exactly exactly? And so I think it's as if he
Speaker 3: doesn't realize what he's doing until it's actually until she's
Speaker 3: said yes, and then he does suddenly realize that losing
Speaker 3: face or having everyone know that his wife has died
Speaker 3: in his place is maybe about us just as bad
Speaker 3: as death. And she actually talks about that too in
Speaker 3: the speech about her children. She's essentially I think I
Speaker 3: am remembering correctly that she basically says like, well, what
Speaker 3: would possibly, you know, what could possibly happen for my
Speaker 3: children if they had a father who was such a
Speaker 3: coward and so anyway sidebark, But I just felt like
Speaker 3: Persephone would be super interested in Alcestis as a person
Speaker 3: who made these choices that were leaving the men in
Speaker 3: her life kind of flummixed. Yeah, that, you know, she
Speaker 3: had gone to the underworld of her own free will,
Speaker 3: and so the idea of the two of them being
Speaker 3: in this shared space, but also it's a weird space, right,
Speaker 3: It's the underworld, and Persephone has power there, and then
Speaker 3: I had to kind of figure out, like, what does
Speaker 3: Alcestis have there? You know, is she dead?
Speaker 2: Is she not dead?
Speaker 3: That's also true in the play, right, it's like is
Speaker 3: she dead? Is she not dead? Who knows? Right? So, yeah,
Speaker 3: I think that's I wasn't as interested in Persephone and Hades,
Speaker 3: except for, of course, the fact that if Persephone starts
Speaker 3: getting obsessed with Alcestis in whatever way, like, of course
Speaker 3: Hades will be aware of that. He's aware of everything
Speaker 3: in the underworld. To get back to the initiating incident
Speaker 3: of my reading the dramatist, one of the teachers in
Speaker 3: that high school class that I took when we read
Speaker 3: the Odyssey as well, he I remember him talking about
Speaker 3: I don't remember if it was Calypso or Circe, but
Speaker 3: he he was like, well, you know, goddess has happened
Speaker 3: to Odysseus basically, right, like because he was talking about
Speaker 3: the huge, massive, super obvious double standard of Odysseus, right,
Speaker 3: and that like obviously, you know, Penelope has to be
Speaker 3: like scrupulously guarding her behavior so that none of the
Speaker 3: suitors think that anything is that she's even open to
Speaker 3: the possibility of remarriage. But like Odysseus, you know, yes,
Speaker 3: some goddesses like they happen, he gets trapped for a
Speaker 3: while whatever. And I guess I was also really intrigued
Speaker 3: by the idea of like, so Persephone's married, Alcestis is married.
Speaker 3: It's not like that ever stopped any of the gods
Speaker 3: or the Greek mortal man. So yeah, I think I
Speaker 3: was just sort of like, well, what if a goddess
Speaker 3: happened to a young, married Greek woman instead?
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's really interesting because one, I just love the
Speaker 1: idea of saying goddess has happened when it's like the
Speaker 1: answer is that one is a man and one is
Speaker 1: a woman. It's not so much of a goddess is
Speaker 1: happening as it is a complete and utter double standard.
Speaker 1: That is just one hundred percent what that was absolutely yeah,
Speaker 1: like women had to be pure and men did not.
Speaker 1: That's all there was to it. But yes, it's a
Speaker 1: great phrase to like also then to use in this
Speaker 1: context because it's yeah, I mean, yeah, that's so interesting.
Speaker 1: So like, I mean, yeah, I don't want to, like,
Speaker 1: you know, give away too much of a relationship, I guess,
Speaker 1: but that's sure. Yeah, that's interesting.
Speaker 3: I mean it's a queer retelling, no worries we can
Speaker 3: talk about it.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, yeah, No, I just didn't want to like
Speaker 1: spoil what type of relationship they might have. So I mean,
Speaker 1: I think that there are more and more queer retellings now,
Speaker 1: but they are still obviously, like very much in the minority.
Speaker 1: But I love the idea that even before Song of
Speaker 1: Achilles you had this one. But one of the most
Speaker 1: rare things is a queer retelling featuring two women. So
Speaker 1: I would love to hear more about that particular aspect.
Speaker 1: And like, I mean, it's so it's such an interesting
Speaker 1: thing to have a conversation with you now when you
Speaker 1: wrote it so long ago. Yeah, but like I would
Speaker 1: love to hear about your mindset at the time. But like,
Speaker 1: also writing that in two thousand and eight, you said, right.
Speaker 3: Like even earlier, a different time, yes, super different time. Absolutely, yeah,
Speaker 3: I think, I mean it is true. I will admit
Speaker 3: again I adore Madeline Miller's books. I think she is
Speaker 3: amazingly talented, and actually I think as much as I
Speaker 3: love Song of Achilles, I think Sirce is actually my favorite.
Speaker 3: But I did have a couple of like slightly bitter
Speaker 3: thoughts of like, well, maybe if my queer retelling had
Speaker 3: been some sexy dudes, you know, maybe it would have
Speaker 3: been the zeitgeist. So I get it, But also like
Speaker 3: I sympathize with that, right, I grew up reading the
Speaker 3: sexy dude fan fiction largely, which is also definitely more
Speaker 3: about men than women. So I think that what I
Speaker 3: thought about at the time, I guess was just that
Speaker 3: I didn't want it, wasn't particularly interested in telling. I
Speaker 3: don't know. I mean, I think about, for example, like
Speaker 3: the the veriness sary content note that you have on
Speaker 3: your podcast, right, that's just like sexual assault, it's everywhere,
Speaker 3: It's Greek mythology, right, And I guess I just wasn't like,
Speaker 3: I don't think it would even have occurred to me
Speaker 3: to try to retell a story that involved a Greek
Speaker 3: male god pursuing a woman, because I just was like, no,
Speaker 3: you know, like I didn't want to try to I
Speaker 3: don't even know what you would do to make that
Speaker 3: not icky, And so it felt like there was a
Speaker 3: lot more space, like in a relationship between a goddess
Speaker 3: and a woman, there was a lot more space to
Speaker 3: think about what that would mean in terms of in
Speaker 3: terms of consent, in terms of dynamics, like power dynamics
Speaker 3: between the two of them. More broadly, because again, there
Speaker 3: are like things that Alcastis has that Sephanie doesn't, which
Speaker 3: is mortality eventually the opportunity to go back to being
Speaker 3: alive again in a simple way without restrictions and an agency,
Speaker 3: just the choice of having gone there herself. And so
Speaker 3: it seemed like it would be a little bit more complicated.
Speaker 3: And I also think that the other thing that really
Speaker 3: that I thought about a lot, in terms of what
Speaker 3: the life of a young person growing up in a
Speaker 3: world where the gods really are functional forces in your
Speaker 3: everyday life, is that so much of that is also,
Speaker 3: I mean what I observed from the stories anyway, so
Speaker 3: much of it is about unintended consequences and trickery, and
Speaker 3: so I mean even just the earlier parts of Anatis's story,
Speaker 3: right that like Apollo is he he is a favorite
Speaker 3: of Apollos because he was kind to Apollo when Apollo
Speaker 3: was in the role of a cowherd or a shepherd
Speaker 3: or what and was taking care of his because he
Speaker 3: was being punished. So like there's always the sort of
Speaker 3: you know, the hospitality requirements and not treating people strangers
Speaker 3: poorly because it might actually be Athena and just like
Speaker 3: fucking with you or whatever. And I think that I
Speaker 3: was I've always also been interested, Like in this new
Speaker 3: edition of the book, there's also a little tiny piece
Speaker 3: of flash fiction that I wrote about about Selina. That's
Speaker 3: because the other things that all was stuck with me
Speaker 3: were the stories of the female you know, divine figures
Speaker 3: who went to Zeus and asked for their lovers to
Speaker 3: live forever and instead they were like grasshoppers or they
Speaker 3: slept forever, and that there are just so many ways
Speaker 3: that you don't actually get what you want, yeah, in
Speaker 3: these stories, especially if you're a woman. I think.
Speaker 1: Of my podcast.
Speaker 3: Exactly, So, yeah, I think I just was so much
Speaker 3: more interested in in in women's roles than I was
Speaker 3: in in just like the gods, I guess broadly.
Speaker 1: Yeah, well, and like having it be a goddess like
Speaker 1: Persephone is so interesting because, like you've said before though
Speaker 1: to the listener, I'm not one hundred percent sure how
Speaker 1: much you'll have said in stuff that I've kept, But
Speaker 1: Persephone being a goddess who is you know, not there
Speaker 1: willingly who has been I know, listeners, who has been
Speaker 1: abducted by Hades and brought there against against her will.
Speaker 1: Like that's such an interesting thing because you know, as
Speaker 1: I also will admit still, like she does take on
Speaker 1: that role for all that she was brought there against
Speaker 1: her will, she becomes the dread goddess Persephone, Like she
Speaker 1: takes her lot and she's like, fuck you, I'm going
Speaker 1: to become like the most powerful goddess. I'm going to
Speaker 1: absolutely dominate over Hades at every possible opportunity. Like I'm
Speaker 1: trying to think, which it must be. Oh yeah, I
Speaker 1: mean it's just the Odyssey where like, yeah, it's all
Speaker 1: Persephone happening. Like there's so little access most of the
Speaker 1: times when anybody's in the underworld, it's like Hades, who
Speaker 1: this is the dread goddess? You know, so yeah, working
Speaker 1: with her so interesting. So like, I mean, what did
Speaker 1: you want her to be like or what did you
Speaker 1: make her like? I don't know, I want to hear
Speaker 1: more about your persephone because she's cool.
Speaker 3: Sure, Yeah, I mean I think of her. I definitely
Speaker 3: thought of her as a in that role, right, in
Speaker 3: the sort of dread goddess role, but nonetheless still appearing
Speaker 3: as a kind of vulnerable figure. Like I think that's
Speaker 3: what's so interesting about her is that she has this
Speaker 3: origin story that suggests vulnerability, like being vulnerable to you know,
Speaker 3: whether it's persuasion or abduction or whatever, right, and and
Speaker 3: then she takes on the role that she is given.
Speaker 3: It just seems like that's also like I don't I
Speaker 3: don't know how to not see that as kind of
Speaker 3: metaphorical for like the ways that women were allowed to
Speaker 3: operate in the society at the time. It's like things
Speaker 3: happened to you, and then you either took on those
Speaker 3: roles and did something with them or you didn't. And
Speaker 3: I think that that's also kind of the decision making
Speaker 3: process that Aucastis has to go through in the novel,
Speaker 3: is what do I want to do with you know,
Speaker 3: I made this split second decision to make this sacrifice,
Speaker 3: and in her case she also has I mean, in
Speaker 3: my novel she also has the motivation of looking for
Speaker 3: her sister in the underworld, which is a separate it's
Speaker 3: not the same. She's so clearly motivated in the play
Speaker 3: by her children. I mean, she actually talks to them
Speaker 3: a lot more than she talks to her husband in
Speaker 3: the play. And so I guess, yeah, I just was
Speaker 3: interested in thinking about how person I mean, so much
Speaker 3: is made about Alcastis as the model wife, and you know,
Speaker 3: the ideal Greek woman who because she died and sacrificed herself.
Speaker 3: It's right, right, exactly, It's just all like self negation
Speaker 3: is what makes the model woman. And the book does
Speaker 3: it kind of starts with a frame that considers that that, like,
Speaker 3: you know, Alcestis has heard the story of her birth
Speaker 3: from people around her, and then after the book concludes,
Speaker 3: we get some of sort of the way that her
Speaker 3: story gets promulgated, I guess, and like passed down in
Speaker 3: different ways, but it feels just really similar, Like, so
Speaker 3: you have this figure who's the ideal self sacrificing wife,
Speaker 3: and then you have the dread goddess and yet you know,
Speaker 3: they just they felt like kind of two sides of
Speaker 3: the same coin to me.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, I mean that she is so interesting for
Speaker 1: all of those reasons. One of the things I keep
Speaker 1: thinking about talking about this this I learned through an
Speaker 1: episode with doctor Ellie Mack and Roberts, not the Alcestis episode.
Speaker 1: I've had Ellie a lot because she's wonderful, but she
Speaker 1: came on to talk about persephone because she specializes in
Speaker 1: the underworld. And one of the things she told me
Speaker 1: was that in I'm going to forget where it was,
Speaker 1: but I think partially in Sicily, so you know, the
Speaker 1: Greek part of Italian or of Italy, there was this
Speaker 1: whole practice of girls before they were going off to
Speaker 1: be married, of them creating these like tablets I think,
Speaker 1: depicting themselves as persephone in all these different ways. Yes,
Speaker 1: and like so things like some of them are going
Speaker 1: off happily, like welcoming you know, their new life, welcoming
Speaker 1: them or like you know, accepting their husband with open arms,
Speaker 1: and then some of them are terrified and they like
Speaker 1: picked their own stories through persephone. And it was just
Speaker 1: like one of the most I mean impactful things I've
Speaker 1: learned about young women in ancient Greece. But also, like,
Speaker 1: I think it says all of these things that you've
Speaker 1: been saying about Persephone, this idea that like she is
Speaker 1: just so many things at once. You know, she's like powerful,
Speaker 1: but she's vulnerable. She you know, experienced this horrible situation,
Speaker 1: but then she became so much more because of it
Speaker 1: and through it. And yeah, I mean she is just
Speaker 1: fascinating in that respect, particularly when she does connect with
Speaker 1: these like real people in that way.
Speaker 3: Yeah, absolutely, for sure. Yeah, And I think just I
Speaker 3: feel as though, you know, whatever you think about her
Speaker 3: eventual attitude toward her circumstances, it seems so. I mean,
Speaker 3: there are so many different stories across different kinds of
Speaker 3: mythology and folk tale about not friaking eating the fruit,
Speaker 3: like whether it's the apple or the pomegranate or the
Speaker 3: fairy food or whatever, and so it seems like she
Speaker 3: also connects to these other stories about I mean, it's
Speaker 3: like Persephanite to Goblin Market, right, like it just it's
Speaker 3: not so maybe it was my reading Victorian's time. I
Speaker 3: was just reading like too much Christina Rosetti, Oh my god, Yeah, seriously. Yeah,
Speaker 3: So I think that it's just the way that she
Speaker 3: is representative or connects to so many other stories about
Speaker 3: like the dangers of succumbing to a particular place, like
Speaker 3: leaving aside how she gets to the underworld once she's there,
Speaker 3: it's it is actually an action of hers supposedly that
Speaker 3: you know, traps her there. And so yeah, I think
Speaker 3: that's another element of it too. That's that's interesting, and
Speaker 3: and that kind of ties into the question of queerness.
Speaker 3: And this actually makes me think. I mean, one of
Speaker 3: my favorite favorite movies of the last few years was
Speaker 3: Portrait of a Lady on Fire, which is so lovely
Speaker 3: any if folks haven't seen it, but it is so
Speaker 3: it's an eighteenth century France and it's a movie about
Speaker 3: these two women, one of whom is about to be married,
Speaker 3: and a portrait painter, female portrait painter who is hired
Speaker 3: to paint a portrait for the potential suitor of the
Speaker 3: young woman who's going to be married, and of course
Speaker 3: they fall in love. And it's very passionate, but done
Speaker 3: in a very like, a very believable, beautiful way that
Speaker 3: doesn't feel sort of, I don't know, melodramatic, and it's
Speaker 3: also just beautifully shot, so gorgeous movie. But it's I mean,
Speaker 3: I don't want to go too far into spoiler territory,
Speaker 3: but I think one of the things I love about
Speaker 3: it is that it's not a movie that like, it's
Speaker 3: not a story about and then they run off to right,
Speaker 3: you know, it's a story about having this time in
Speaker 3: a specific circumstance between two people. And I think that that,
Speaker 3: I mean a that like ties into the Persephone myth
Speaker 3: in a bigger way. Right, She's she only ever has
Speaker 3: like limited time, but also I was struck by the
Speaker 3: idea of Alcestis also and maybe like queerness between women
Speaker 3: in particular at this time or in the ways that
Speaker 3: we associate with Greek mythology and culture, like being something
Speaker 3: that she had access to but in a limited way
Speaker 3: that it wasn't as easy as just like it's not
Speaker 3: like she falls in love with Persephone and then the
Speaker 3: rest of the book is just they rule together, and
Speaker 3: you know it's it's just it's more complicated than that,
Speaker 3: and it's more contingent and constrained, but that feels more
Speaker 3: I mean, none of this book is meant to just
Speaker 3: be you know, it's a retelling. It it's not supposed
Speaker 3: to be an accurate account of his but at the
Speaker 3: same time it is. I think there are ways to
Speaker 3: kind of get at some things about like queerness in
Speaker 3: the Gaps. I guess.
Speaker 1: That's one of my favorite things to just I feel
Speaker 1: like I've said it too many times on this show,
Speaker 1: but my favorite theory, a theory about women, queer women
Speaker 1: in the ancient Greece particularly, would be like ancient Athens,
Speaker 1: because that's where we have all the records, but also
Speaker 1: it's where we know that, like, you know, women were
Speaker 1: most constrained, right, And I love the idea that the
Speaker 1: Greeks were so obsessed with sex being penetrative that women
Speaker 1: could probably go off and hang out with each other
Speaker 1: and like fool around all they wanted and they wouldn't
Speaker 1: have any problem because it didn't count as.
Speaker 3: Sex absolutely, And there's so much history of that. I mean,
Speaker 3: if we go if we go back to like the
Speaker 3: eighteenth nineteenth century British connection, weirdly enough, like one of
Speaker 3: the things. And so my new novel that just came
Speaker 3: out that's set in late nineteenth century US is also
Speaker 3: it's at a moment, it's the moment you know where
Speaker 3: queerness is starting to get pathologized, right, and like sexologists
Speaker 3: are coming along and being like, wait a minute, romantic
Speaker 3: friendship between women? What hold on? But there's there's a
Speaker 3: super famous court case that I'm always talking about. So
Speaker 3: this is in the late you know, late eighteen hundreds
Speaker 3: in Scotland and it's the basis of the play The
Speaker 3: Children's Hour if you've encountered that ever. But it was
Speaker 3: these two women who ran a boarding house and they
Speaker 3: were accused by a female student of doing something inappropriate.
Speaker 3: And there's so much more complication here, right because the
Speaker 3: student was actually Anglo Indian and like, so there's like
Speaker 3: race and class stuff and all kinds of stuff. But
Speaker 3: they were accused and the judge's decision and the woods
Speaker 3: Periy case, if anyone's really curious, the judge's decision was, know,
Speaker 3: how could they have done anything inappropriate? They are English women,
Speaker 3: whoa right? You know? So this is like late eighteen
Speaker 3: hundreds and he's still just like I do not understand,
Speaker 3: like what could they have done? You know? It's literally
Speaker 3: just yeah, it's like what do you mean women have?
Speaker 3: How do women have sex? Like that?
Speaker 1: Yeah?
Speaker 3: So it was and it was it was jurisprudence at
Speaker 3: the time, you know, So I think there's I think
Speaker 3: there is that question always of like what is not visible?
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, just behind the scenes. I mean, so much
Speaker 1: of what we know about ancient Greece is we know
Speaker 1: it purely because men wrote it down. So it's like
Speaker 1: so often, you know, people want to make these claims
Speaker 1: about what didn't happen in the ancient world or even like,
Speaker 1: you know, it comes up with me a lot, because
Speaker 1: you know, I cover as many queer stories on the
Speaker 1: podcast as possible, and they're all men save for like
Speaker 1: the horror that is Callisto, and I can't really think
Speaker 1: of anything else other than I talked about Sappho obviously,
Speaker 1: but like they're all men, and people are like, well,
Speaker 1: why are there no stories of women. I'm like, well,
Speaker 1: because men wrote it down, not because there weren't stories,
Speaker 1: They just it didn't get recorded for us, you know.
Speaker 1: And yeah, it's like but it also just leaves so
Speaker 1: much to be like, you know, theorized about in whatever
Speaker 1: satisfying way that might be done. And you know, at
Speaker 1: least we have Sappho, and like we know there were
Speaker 1: lots of other women writing poetry. We just don't absolutely them,
Speaker 1: but yeah, I mean it's heartbreaking.
Speaker 3: And also, you know, it was a society in which
Speaker 3: there were literal penis figurines.
Speaker 1: Like literally everywhere, literally literally everywhere.
Speaker 3: Yeahah, on the actors, just every Yeah. So I mean yeah, indeed,
Speaker 3: so yeah, no, I think it just was I mean,
Speaker 3: I absolutely I think some of my impulse was that
Speaker 3: as I was writing this, you know, I was like
Speaker 3: an early twenties, an early twenties women's college graduate who
Speaker 3: was like, what do you mean, Like, why is this
Speaker 3: woman not in her own play? And I was really
Speaker 3: fascinated in particular you mentioned this a little earlier, but
Speaker 3: with the notion of her silence when she comes back,
Speaker 3: partly because in the play it's sort of just represented
Speaker 3: as an effect of having been in the underworld and
Speaker 3: almost like a ritual cleansing that's required, like she's got
Speaker 3: to go through this process of silence because she's returned
Speaker 3: from the underworld. And I think, I mean, I feel
Speaker 3: like I'm spoiling so much of my own retelling, but whatever,
Speaker 3: it's fine. She's actively choosing not to speak for a
Speaker 3: period of time at the end of my version, and
Speaker 3: I think, and it's partly because she's just observing, and
Speaker 3: she's observing as much as anything else. I think she's
Speaker 3: observing her own life, like she's observing the life that
Speaker 3: she came back to and the husband that she had
Speaker 3: been given to and his relationship with Apollo, and like
Speaker 3: what's left after she came back. And so I think
Speaker 3: I was really I trust Euripides enough to not think
Speaker 3: that it's as simple as like, oh, he just didn't
Speaker 3: want to give the woman a voice, right, Like it's
Speaker 3: not it's clearly not that, but I also it nonetheless
Speaker 3: results in her not having a voice in the play,
Speaker 3: And so I think it's that tension was really interesting
Speaker 3: to me as well.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, oh that's I mean, I can only imagine,
Speaker 1: like you spend that time in the underworld and then
Speaker 1: if you know also then you I mean in his play,
Speaker 1: the I think the assumption is kind of she's almost
Speaker 1: in like a version of limbo, like, right, because she
Speaker 1: doesn't even technically, I think she's not usually counted among
Speaker 1: people who have done a katabasis, right, like an actual
Speaker 1: descent and a it's the opposite of descent and ascent
Speaker 1: from the underworld, Like she doesn't always count as one
Speaker 1: of those people who's gone there and come back, because
Speaker 1: I think the idea is that, like, she didn't have
Speaker 1: a chance to fully go down before heracles got her
Speaker 1: back because she was still with death, so she was
Speaker 1: still kind of like in the process. But I love
Speaker 1: the idea of it being a full catabasis, it being
Speaker 1: this experience that she goes through and then because that
Speaker 1: means coming back is a whole different thing, right, like
Speaker 1: coming back after you've lived in the underworld and you've
Speaker 1: hung out. Because they would say, you know, she was
Speaker 1: friends with Persephone, they were good pals. Yeah, roommates, Like
Speaker 1: coming back, you know, and then going back to your
Speaker 1: husband who let you die for him because he is
Speaker 1: a coward, Like right, yeah, what a what a thing
Speaker 1: to experience. I can imagine that a bit of intentional
Speaker 1: silence as you kind of re evaluate, like would be helpful.
Speaker 3: Yeah. And the only other thing I'll say about about
Speaker 3: the cannabasis and that structure is that I I did
Speaker 3: very intentionally structure it. So there's sort of the first
Speaker 3: third where before the moment of her death and then
Speaker 3: it is and again in the new edition of the book,
Speaker 3: there's a little drawing my little silly drawing that I'm
Speaker 3: made of this and some other stuff about the structure.
Speaker 3: But it's like I imagined it as a series of
Speaker 3: concentric circles cut through the metal. So it's like it
Speaker 3: is a sort of abcded you know, CP structure where
Speaker 3: she is very explicitly like you know, encounter servers re
Speaker 3: encounter servers on the way out, Like there are paired
Speaker 3: scenes that are meant to echo each other to indicate
Speaker 3: that it is really that full process of like descending
Speaker 3: and ascending, as you said.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I love that. Yeah, She's just such an interesting
Speaker 1: character purely if only because we like know nothing, you know,
Speaker 1: like I love I love those people and those stories
Speaker 1: so much, and I think I think that Euripides was
Speaker 1: really doing that on purpose, Like, oh, I totally. He
Speaker 1: just the thing that I love about him most is
Speaker 1: that he cared about his women characters, like he wanted
Speaker 1: them to be complex and have thoughts and feelings and
Speaker 1: you know, be humans, right, Like I'm a surprise, But yeah,
Speaker 1: I think Alcestis is so often seen by maybe people
Speaker 1: who just don't see Euripides that way. They are wrong,
Speaker 1: I was gonna say, I think, but no, they are wrong,
Speaker 1: you know, so as. Yeah, like you're saying this kind
Speaker 1: of like model wife, and I think that's the myth
Speaker 1: that he was working off of. Yeah, but the thing
Speaker 1: about the play is that people tend to forget is
Speaker 1: that their reception, just like your retelling is reception, right,
Speaker 1: Like Euriples was making conscious retelling choices from a pre
Speaker 1: existing myth, and I think he was. He was silencing
Speaker 1: Alcestis so on purpose, you know, to examine everything else
Speaker 1: around her, or to like make commentary on her. So
Speaker 1: many different options. But yeah, it just it does leave
Speaker 1: so much open.
Speaker 3: Yeah, And I can't remember if this came up in
Speaker 3: the in the earlier Aucustas episodes. I think it did.
Speaker 3: Actually the fact that you know, it wasn't even necessarily
Speaker 3: a terribly well known myth at the time, right, Like, yeah,
Speaker 3: that as far as we understand that it's not one.
Speaker 3: I mean, there's a reason that people today are not
Speaker 3: super familiar with it either in many cases that just
Speaker 3: there aren't a ton of retellings of it in even
Speaker 3: in various classical sources, like it's just not it's not.
Speaker 3: And so I feel like the effect of that has
Speaker 3: sort of because I feel like when you get more retellings,
Speaker 3: you get more opportunities for nuance. And so because there
Speaker 3: are fewer retellings, it's not surprising that she's been so
Speaker 3: reduced to when you go look at say visual representations
Speaker 3: of her, they really are just that ideal wife figure.
Speaker 3: And I think that that's kind of not surprising, right, Like,
Speaker 3: if you're operating from limited material, that she's been sort
Speaker 3: of reduced to the well what some readers at some
Speaker 3: different periods apparently thought was the essence of the character,
Speaker 3: which is just like sacrificial wife. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Yeah, well it's exactly the same for Penelope, right where
Speaker 1: ninety five percent of the sourcing on her is just
Speaker 1: the Odyssey, and so like, I think that if you're
Speaker 1: reading the Odyssey sympathetically or you're you know, reading certain
Speaker 1: adaptations of it or translations of it, like you see
Speaker 1: a different Penelope. But if you are working off of
Speaker 1: what the White Man over the last three hundred years
Speaker 1: have told us about Penelope, you know, she is this
Speaker 1: ideal wife who waited for her husband very patiently and
Speaker 1: was absolutely perfect. You know, like so much of what
Speaker 1: we see now, particularly you know, people who are just
Speaker 1: coming at mythology with an interest you know, versus studying
Speaker 1: it like you, we are so so completely taken in
Speaker 1: by what the last three hundred years have said about
Speaker 1: it versus what actually existed twenty five hundred years ago, right,
Speaker 1: like absolutely, Yeah, it really takes like breaking things down
Speaker 1: and looking at them, you know, at their essence or
Speaker 1: just all these different ways that we can look at
Speaker 1: those things without the influence of straight white men.
Speaker 3: And yeah, And I think that's what's so valuable about
Speaker 3: what you do in the podcast is just that you
Speaker 3: are talking so much about the context as we I mean,
Speaker 3: obviously the sources we have our limited heartbreaking et cetera.
Speaker 3: But nonetheless, like there is context you can tell by
Speaker 3: putting different sources in conversation with each other how people
Speaker 3: thought about some stories at the time. And I think
Speaker 3: it's really useful to have that because I think you
Speaker 3: can see even in our own time, I mean, for
Speaker 3: God's sake, right like now we're living in a time
Speaker 3: where you have everything gets rebooted just like five years later,
Speaker 3: and see how different it is even then. So like, yeah,
Speaker 3: thinking about how centuries and centuries and centuries of retellings
Speaker 3: have kind of reshaped and distorted in a lot of
Speaker 3: cases the originals, and also how alien and weird a
Speaker 3: lot of the Originals were. I think that's valuable. Like,
Speaker 3: I think that was one of the biggest things that
Speaker 3: interested me about this was I remember thinking about this
Speaker 3: pretty explicitly as a first contact story, like in a
Speaker 3: science fiction sense, you know, like this is the first
Speaker 3: time that Alceasta's is actually meeting gods in a real
Speaker 3: intensive way, Like she's sort of her grandfather's kind of
Speaker 3: appeared occasionally and she's like yet, you know, and just
Speaker 3: try to avoid him essentially, And now so she's as
Speaker 3: fascinated with them as they are with her in a
Speaker 3: sense that it's it's almost easier if you think of
Speaker 3: the gods as aliens than if you try to think
Speaker 3: of them with the resonances that we have with the
Speaker 3: idea of a god.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's my favorite way of seeing the Greek gods.
Speaker 1: So because I think, well not, I think absolutely Christianity
Speaker 1: has one hundred percent influenced how we see these things.
Speaker 1: But like you know, people always want to put this
Speaker 1: like reverence on the gods that they don't deserve and
Speaker 1: they didn't have back in the day, like they it
Speaker 1: wasn't about treating them like a Christian god. It was
Speaker 1: not about any of that, like they were you know,
Speaker 1: I mean other than you know, the miss about insulting
Speaker 1: gods being kind of a bad idea, like otherwise, they
Speaker 1: probably saw them pretty poorly.
Speaker 3: And it felt like it was so transactional, right, It
Speaker 3: was like, you know, you need your relationship with the
Speaker 3: gods is about doing things the right way. It's not
Speaker 3: about how how you honor them in your heart.
Speaker 1: Yeah, exactly, yeah.
Speaker 3: And so yeah, and I think I don't know, that's
Speaker 3: one of the things that I remember being the most
Speaker 3: struck by about, especially thinking about the time scale when
Speaker 3: you get into Rome in particular, just the idea that
Speaker 3: there were rituals that were old enough that nobody at
Speaker 3: the time knew what they were for, but that you
Speaker 3: still had to do them because you didn't want to
Speaker 3: piss off the cons That's amazing to me, Like that's
Speaker 3: so great, the notion that you know, within these these
Speaker 3: civilizations that we tend to collapse in our brains into
Speaker 3: like one thing that actually there were people who were like,
Speaker 3: I don't know, I don't know why we have to
Speaker 3: throw the piglet three times before we kill it, Like
Speaker 3: you just have to throw the piglet like and and
Speaker 3: I think that's really lovely that that there was just
Speaker 3: a human, a human superstition that kept some of these
Speaker 3: ideas going, that worked in ways that are recognizable, but
Speaker 3: also just was like so different, as you were saying,
Speaker 3: from anything that we associate with like Judeo Christian ways
Speaker 3: of building relationships with deities. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean Rome is so interesting too, like without
Speaker 1: going deep into that, but their version of like because
Speaker 1: they were superstitious as all hell, like in a totally
Speaker 1: different way than the Greek. Yeah yeah, and you're like, guys,
Speaker 1: what's happening with you? Like their relationship with the gods.
Speaker 1: I always want to know more, but like I don't
Speaker 1: even know where to begin because my entire background is Greek,
Speaker 1: Like yeah, same, yeah, I mean I just my favorite
Speaker 1: thing to emphasize. And I know I sound like a
Speaker 1: broken record, but the thing about podcast is that people
Speaker 1: just pick up at a random place, so I have
Speaker 1: to say it every time. But like we're talking seven
Speaker 1: hundred to one thousand years worth of Greek. Yeah, mythology happening,
Speaker 1: like it was a moving and changing and adapting thing,
Speaker 1: and so yeah, when it gets collapsed into this like
Speaker 1: cut and dry a to B story. May you lose
Speaker 1: all of what makes it interesting, let alone all the
Speaker 1: complexities of the gods themselves. I mean, hell, like you
Speaker 1: even get things like you know, might I always have
Speaker 1: people asking me like why is Apollo the sun god
Speaker 1: but also Helios? And I'm like, time right, like five
Speaker 1: hundred years so like he didn't really used to be
Speaker 1: now he is or he was then or whatever, you know, Like, yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: you have to have to account for like just the
Speaker 1: sheer volume of time. And I think when you're looking
Speaker 1: at a play, that's when it gets so interesting because
Speaker 1: it gets flattened into this this is the myth, but
Speaker 1: it's not the myth. It's one guy writing a story.
Speaker 1: He was fictionalizing it, Like we don't know, because especially
Speaker 1: with Alcestis, Like I'm trying to think of what other
Speaker 1: source we have. I'm sure, I'm sure she's in Pseudopollodorus.
Speaker 1: Do you know if she's one of the women that
Speaker 1: Odysseus meets in the underworld or anything. No, I didn't.
Speaker 3: Yeah I don't think so. No, I would remember if
Speaker 3: that were the case.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, I mean, it's a pretty iconic moment one
Speaker 1: of the best. I wish I had something on hand,
Speaker 1: but yeah, I mean, she's not mentioned often, and so no,
Speaker 1: I think I think that there is a Homeric reference
Speaker 1: to her or Admatis, But you know, other than that,
Speaker 1: we have Euipitdes' play and Euiptes play is weird. It
Speaker 1: is the weirdest Greek play without question, and so it's like, well,
Speaker 1: what was he doing with it? You know?
Speaker 3: Like I think at the time, were people like what
Speaker 3: the hell europodes? You know? Like that? I love to
Speaker 3: think that. I also, I mean, the one final thing
Speaker 3: I'll say about like inspirations for this is the first
Speaker 3: place that I had ever encountered this story was actually
Speaker 3: there's a roke cup poem that's lovely, that's about so
Speaker 3: it's very beautiful and the end of it is really striking.
Speaker 3: Let me see if I can pull it up here quickly. Yeah,
Speaker 3: not the archaiccter so apall. Anyway, the way I remember
Speaker 3: it is that the last line of the poem is
Speaker 3: communicating the notion that Agnotus is kind of turning from
Speaker 3: her and as she's disappearing, and it says, in order
Speaker 3: to see nothing but that smile like she smiles as
Speaker 3: she disappears, and that felt really, it felt really crystallizing
Speaker 3: of Admetus's reaction that he's like he wants to see
Speaker 3: her in a particular way. He wants to have this
Speaker 3: vision of her. I mean, I think before anyone else
Speaker 3: starts treating her as the ideal sacrificial wife, he does.
Speaker 3: And so it's this choice that he's making in terms
Speaker 3: of how to see her decision and how to see
Speaker 3: his own choices. And I think that influenced the way
Speaker 3: I came to the Europe's play when I read it
Speaker 3: as well.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, yeah, I mean makes sense, Like so
Speaker 1: much of the play is about Admotis making poor decisions
Speaker 1: and then having to face them and figure out what
Speaker 1: to do next, like you know, and it's it's such
Speaker 1: it's I wish that I had read it more recently. Frankly,
Speaker 1: I have to read too much Greek myth all the time,
Speaker 1: so I did not reread it, and so it's been
Speaker 1: like a year, but you know, he's just he's like
Speaker 1: making all these bad decisions and then feeling bad for
Speaker 1: himself and then like deciding what to do next, and
Speaker 1: he just like he just really is such an interestingly
Speaker 1: messy character that it's so clear to me that, like
Speaker 1: the play is really about Admetis, but he wants it
Speaker 1: to be about Alcestis, and so, you know, Euripies named
Speaker 1: it Alcestis, but it reminds me kind of of Antagony.
Speaker 1: You know, Antigony is really the creative show, right, but
Speaker 1: like it's a yeah, like what's making a show of
Speaker 1: being you know, about her or you know. I think
Speaker 1: Eurypsies are doing it more intentionally than Sophocles, but maybe
Speaker 1: again because that's the thing.
Speaker 3: I think that's why Sophocles was never my favorite. Yeah,
Speaker 3: I mean I love Antigony. It's a gorgeous play. Yeah,
Speaker 3: but it feels like, yeah, it feels like his treatment
Speaker 3: of her is kind of an instrument, is not conscious.
Speaker 1: Yeah exactly. Yeah, Yeah, whereas this is like we're gonna
Speaker 1: call it the Alcestis because Admeatis would want it to
Speaker 1: seem like it is about Alcistis, but it is about Admotist.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, absolutely, absolutely, I totally agree.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean I always was surprised that it's not
Speaker 1: one of the alphabet plays, like it is one of
Speaker 1: the ones that was preserved intentionally of euripites, and so like,
Speaker 1: I'm so you know, I wish I even knew where
Speaker 1: to find more commentary on it. People are always talking
Speaker 1: about commentary, and I'm like, I just I get I
Speaker 1: need to know more of these things, but like, I
Speaker 1: just want to understand more about you know, what they
Speaker 1: thought of it back then, I guess, and like why
Speaker 1: why it was one of the ones they saved, because
Speaker 1: like the Helen is the other one I think of
Speaker 1: in terms of like the weirdest plays, and that it
Speaker 1: was very much in alphabet play, like they did not
Speaker 1: save that on purpose.
Speaker 3: Sure, And I think, yeah, again, as I said, it's
Speaker 3: just it's really lovely to think about somebody, you know,
Speaker 3: whoever made the choice that ended up preserving the play,
Speaker 3: just being like well, this weird thing. Definitely we're gonna
Speaker 3: want to read that again because we don't know what's
Speaker 3: going on here.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, or like we'll studied in school because it's
Speaker 1: the weird one, Like it's yeah, it's got to be
Speaker 1: like that, that bizarre one that the that the kids
Speaker 1: are going to learn alongside.
Speaker 3: How I build my syllabi.
Speaker 1: Yeah good, right, Well, I mean this has been fascinating
Speaker 1: I'm thrilled about your book. I'm thrilled that there's more. Oh,
Speaker 1: thank you women queer Stories. I'm it's so cool that
Speaker 1: it was that early though too, so I'm glad that
Speaker 1: it's getting republished me too.
Speaker 3: And I'm glad that it also got republished with I'll
Speaker 3: show you whether it's not. But this is the original cover,
Speaker 3: a victorianting of a Roman woman on my Greek book.
Speaker 3: Looks beautiful though, loved it at the time. Great, you know,
Speaker 3: looks very Greek. They've definitely gone full.
Speaker 1: Yes, it's beautiful, but it's also like, yeah, there's a
Speaker 1: lot happening there.
Speaker 3: It's very gay and dramatic. I'm yeah. So for anyone
Speaker 3: who wants to pick up the gay and dramatic new edition,
Speaker 3: I highly recommend it has foil too. It's shiny.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's beautiful.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 1: Yeah, So when when is it being When is it out?
Speaker 3: So it was just it was released on I think
Speaker 3: September fifth, so it should be available everywhere. It's so repressed.
Speaker 3: Yeah and yeah, and this new edition, like I said,
Speaker 3: has a little bit of extra deluxe special material in it.
Speaker 3: The little flash fiction and stuff about the writing of
Speaker 3: the novel. So behind the scenes stuff.
Speaker 1: Amazing. I love that. I meant to into this earlier.
Speaker 1: But the pomegranate of it all. Have you heard that
Speaker 1: they also there was a time when they believed that
Speaker 1: that was like a method of birth control.
Speaker 3: No, but I'm fascinated by that because I'm I'm super
Speaker 3: obsessed with sylphium. Oh yeah, the history. You know. I
Speaker 3: know your listeners are probably like, we're all obsessed with sylphium.
Speaker 3: We all need to know what the hell it was.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I don't talk about rome enough, so actually they're
Speaker 1: probably like, live, what is sylfie?
Speaker 3: What are you talking about?
Speaker 1: This is a conversation I have with my Rome obsessed friends.
Speaker 3: But fair, fair, but yes, the mystic, the mystical birth
Speaker 3: control herb that supposedly grew everywhere and was over harvested
Speaker 3: until it disappeared, is my understanding. Yes, yeah, so yeah,
Speaker 3: that becomes that becomes reproductive justice is definitely like a
Speaker 3: thing in my nineteenth century book. And so I was
Speaker 3: reading up on historical stuff about about birth control and
Speaker 3: I did not encounter the pomegranates. But do you know
Speaker 3: if there's any read like, was that explicitly linked to
Speaker 3: the persephone? Story.
Speaker 1: I mean, I don't think it could be explicit in
Speaker 1: the way that we would never have a source that's
Speaker 1: like because Persephone in the Underworld, you know. But I
Speaker 1: think I think that it's probably not much of a leap.
Speaker 1: I'm pretty sure. The problem with my podcast is that
Speaker 1: I learn all these things from all these experts and
Speaker 1: then I forget where I learned them, and things just
Speaker 1: live in my brain. But I would say I'm fairly
Speaker 1: certain that it is in Actually, no, I'm not the
Speaker 1: third episode I've done with Ellie, but I think her
Speaker 1: Persephone episode where with the tablets that I mentioned, I'm
Speaker 1: pretty sure basically if something had anything to do with
Speaker 1: Persephone or the Underworld, it was probably taught to me
Speaker 1: by Eley Meckan Roberts.
Speaker 3: Who is lovely sounds perfect. Yeah, absolutely, well, thank you
Speaker 3: so much. This is you.
Speaker 1: I'm so glad is there. Do you want my listeners
Speaker 1: to follow you anywhere or learn more about anything, or
Speaker 1: do you want to talk about your other book? And
Speaker 1: by talk, I just mean like tell us the name.
Speaker 3: Please sure so you can find me on Instagram, which
Speaker 3: I grudgingly finally activated in the last year because I
Speaker 3: knew it would destroy my attention span, and it has.
Speaker 1: However, it happened to be with TikTok.
Speaker 3: It's also enjoyable. Yeah, I'm still resisting intentionally, but ooh
Speaker 3: it's hard anyway. Yes, so you can find me on Instagram.
Speaker 3: And my second novel, Killing Lee, came out also with
Speaker 3: Soho Press in June, and that is a story about
Speaker 3: based on a true story about a student who disappeared
Speaker 3: from Mount Holyoke College, which is a women's college in Massachusetts,
Speaker 3: in eighteen ninety seven and was never found. So it
Speaker 3: is a queer historical crime novel that centers on the
Speaker 3: aftermath of her disappearance and her family looking for her
Speaker 3: and her best friend and private investigators and all of that.
Speaker 3: And I am currently working on a follow up to
Speaker 3: that novel, just doing a couple of years which will
Speaker 3: trace one of those characters and be set in queer,
Speaker 3: working class New York City and in nineteen hundred.
Speaker 1: Amazing. Oh yeah, I know my listeners love queer stories,
Speaker 1: so I might as well share them all. That's great.
Speaker 3: Yes, I don't know if I will ever revisit the
Speaker 3: classical period or the Mycenian period in my specific case,
Speaker 3: but but I feel like those stories still undergird everything
Speaker 3: that I do, Like I don't know, yeah, just once
Speaker 3: you grew up, de Laer's like it's it's in you
Speaker 3: and it's impossible for it not to come out in
Speaker 3: your stories.
Speaker 1: Well, but especially when you're studying that time period though,
Speaker 1: of like English lit, like the number one thing I
Speaker 1: became to my because most of my friends were in
Speaker 1: my with my English major, and so like every time
Speaker 1: we would read anything from like seventeen hundred to nineteen hundred,
Speaker 1: it was like, live, there's another classical reference. Can you
Speaker 1: explain it to us? Like it they're just constant, right,
Speaker 1: Like they make up so much of mostly poetry, but like,
Speaker 1: my god, there's just so much you can't step away.
Speaker 3: They're so there was a whole other language of it
Speaker 3: was a whole of their just like means of communicating
Speaker 3: extra information to each other.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, yeah, it's the best. Uh Well, thank you
Speaker 1: so much for doing this. It's been so much fun.
Speaker 3: Oh, thank you. Yeah. I had a delightful time talking
Speaker 3: about it, and I'm glad that I'm really excited that
Speaker 3: people might discover the book now that now that it
Speaker 3: has a genre to take a place in rather than
Speaker 3: just being a little book out there on its own
Speaker 3: a little bit too early, just waiting, waiting for everyone
Speaker 3: to join the retelling party, which is now bounteous and
Speaker 3: full of many options.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, not to give the younger generation any
Speaker 1: credit too, but like, I also think it was kind
Speaker 1: of waiting for gen Z. I absolutely Canadian. I've been
Speaker 1: forcing myself to say Z instead of Z just now,
Speaker 1: but that one came that weird. But yeah, like I
Speaker 1: think it was waiting for them, like just the way
Speaker 1: that things have changed, and obviously millennials are a huge
Speaker 1: part of it as well, but like, yeah, I mean
Speaker 1: it's a much queerer world now than it was even
Speaker 1: you know, back ten years ago. So it's just the
Speaker 1: right time for all of this, right, Like yeah.
Speaker 3: Yes, exactly. Yeah, So no, it's a delight to talk
Speaker 3: about it, and thank you for giving me the opportunity
Speaker 3: to introduce more people to it.
Speaker 1: I'm thrilled with Alcestis, like of all people, I was
Speaker 1: so excited. Yeah exactly, Oh, Nerds, thank you so much
Speaker 1: for listening, really really fun conversation. It was such a
Speaker 1: joy talking to Catherine, and I'm thrilled for you all
Speaker 1: to hear it now. Even if I recorded it like
Speaker 1: four months ago. Really it was so much fun and
Speaker 1: I just really think, I'll be honest, I haven't read
Speaker 1: the book yet, but Alcestis Alkestis is this character that
Speaker 1: just is so interesting, so lacking in mythological sources, and
Speaker 1: yet we have this incredible play by Euripides that is
Speaker 1: so weird and specific, and this idea that she just
Speaker 1: comes back from the dead and doesn't speak a damn word.
Speaker 1: I think she is so ripe for a novel, such
Speaker 1: a unique story, one that so few people really know
Speaker 1: about in the wider realm of Greek myth. Such a thrill,
Speaker 1: so so joy talking to Catherine, and if you are interested,
Speaker 1: check out that book. I have linked to Catherine's website
Speaker 1: in the episode description. Thank you all so much for listening.
Speaker 1: Let's talk about myths. Baby is written and produced by
Speaker 1: me Live Albert Michayla Smith is the Hermes to my Olympians,
Speaker 1: my assistant producer. I am doing this off of memory now.
Speaker 1: I've read these credits so many times. Laura Smith is
Speaker 1: the production assistant and audio engineer. The podcast is part
Speaker 1: of the iHeart Podcasts network. Help me continue bringing you
Speaker 1: the world of Greek mythology and the Ancient Mediterranean. By
Speaker 1: becoming a patron, visit patreon dot com, slash mits baby,
Speaker 1: or click the link in this episode's description. I love
Speaker 1: having these conversations. I love having so many recorded that
Speaker 1: I can just pop this in when my life falls
Speaker 1: apart and I have to leave the country in an
Speaker 1: effort to stay sane. Thank you all so much for listening.
Speaker 1: I am live and I love this shit.