xo Orpheus

November 11, 2013
Bernheimer (My Mother Killed Me, my Father Ate Me: Forty New Fairy Tales) reignites the world of myth in her ingenious new anthology of boundless imagination. This collection is a farewell to the old way of myth-making and a courageously wild declaration of a new beginning for the world's oldest form of storytelling. 50 contemporary writers, including an illustrator and a comic book artist, reimagine and resurrect a diverse range of mythical figures from around the world. In Benjamin Percy's "The Dummy," a high-school wrestler, taunted for being a tomboy, forms a significant attachment to one of the practice mannequins. Gina Ochsner's "Sleeping Beauty" retells the Grimm Brothers' "Little Briar Rose" from a less privileged perspective; Joy Williams gives voice to the previously marginal Argos; and Michael Jeffrey Lee and David Schneiderman use Odysseus as a jumping-off point for fresh stories. These enthralling contemporary myths are bold stories of love, loss, friendship, disaster and everything in between.

Starred review from October 1, 2013
Edith Hamilton, the great classicist who made Greek mythology accessible, is officially put on notice by this explosive anthology of reimagined myths. Demeter, a divorced mom, struggles with the half-year custody of her daughter. Narcissus, a tart-tongued partier, offers lodging to a bewitching street urchin named Echo. And a Vietnam veteran, in the spirit of Daedalus, builds an emotional labyrinth for his son. In this searing yet ebullient collection, contemporary authors and one graphic artist move beyond merely updating classic myths of multiple cultures by performing gut-rehabs while maintaining the stark, terrifying moments of fate-altering choices. Outsized appetites figure prominentlyfor power, perfection, or even one's own children, as in the case of the Lamia-like narrator of Elizabeth McCracken's stunning story, Birdsong from the Radio. The form is as inventive as the content. David B.'s The Veiled Prophet is a vivid, graphic serial. Imad Rahman's The Brigadier-General Takes His Final Stand, By James Butt presents two compelling narratives, one found in the footnotes, each a clever take on Oedipus. Editor and award-winning author Bernheimer describes her anthology as a necessary farewell to the old world of myth and acknowledgment of a modern age in which humans are regarded as the new gods. But as these new myths attest, the frightening, timeless themes remain.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2013, American Library Association.)