CirceMy rating: 5 of 5 stars

Phenomenal. An excellent novel. Miller pays homage to the mythology while creating new points of view for Circe’s story. I didn’t think she could top her first book on Achilles and Patroclus (The Song of Achilles), but she has outdone her self and then some. Her storytelling craft is running at 110%. Her word choices and style echo the classical works but they are also fast-paced, unstilted and breathe new life into these ancient storylines. She had me from the opening paragraph.

This work has everything: Titans vs Olympians, gods vs humanity, humanity vs itself, love, hate, revenge, passion, principles and egotism. Miller complicates the “complicated man” (Odysseus), but he is not even the main supporting actor in the work. We encounter so many: Medea, Prometheus, Daedalus, Scylla, Athena, Hermes, Helios, Aeëtes, Pasiphaë, the Minotaur, Telemachus, Penelope, Telegonus, and others.

This book should be on any reading list that includes Homer’s Odyssey or any mythological work from the classical period. Circe’s comments about a future poet singing of her meeting with Odysseus nails the perspective and power of Miller’s work: “I was not surprised by the portrait of myself: the proud witch undone before the hero’s sword, kneeling and begging for mercy. Humbling women seems to me a chief pastime of poets. As if there can be no story unless we crawl and weep.” Powerful and important words, backed up throughout the novel.

Two words to close: Well Done.