House of Names

Starred review from March 13, 2017
Tóibín’s 11th novel retells the ancient Greek tale of Clytemnestra, who kills her husband Agamemnon to avenge the death of their daughter Iphigenia, and her son Orestes, who kills her in turn to avenge his father’s death. The narrators of the novel are Clytemnestra, Orestes, Orestes’s sister Electra, and Clytemnestra’s ghost. Clytemnestra begins by recalling that, for one fleeting moment at Agamemnon’s army encampment when eight-year-old Orestes was on his father’s shoulder, and 16-year-old Iphigenia in her father’s embrace, they seemed the ideal family. Then Agamemnon sacrificed Iphigenia (so he could sail off to war). Clytemnestra plots revenge. Back home at the palace, she seeks help from wily Aegisthus, who, though a prisoner, wields extensive power. When Agamemnon returns, Clytemnestra greets him with a hot bath and a knife in the throat. Later she discovers Aegisthus has kidnapped Orestes to strengthen his hold over her. Orestes takes refuge on a farm, while Electra remains at the palace haunted, powerless, craving payback. After brother and sister reunite, Orestes kills their mother. The novel ends with the appearance of Clytemnestra’s ghost and the birth of a baby. Tóibín refreshes a classic in part by imagining Orestes’s backstory with his friend Leander in a key role and in part by depicting in stark prose vibrant settings, such as palace hallways where shadowy figures conspire. The result is a dramatic, intimate chronicle of a family implosion set in unsettling times as gods withdraw from human affairs. Far from the Brooklyn or Ireland of his recent bestsellers, Tóibín explores universal themes of failure, loss, loneliness, and repression.

March 15, 2017
Toibin, an enthusiast of classic storytelling, from the Bible (The Testament of Mary, 2012) to Henry James (The Master, 2004), this time takes a crack at Greek mythology.This novel of palace intrigue is inspired by the plays of Aeschylus, Sophocles, and Euripides, focusing on the House of Atreus' murderous infighting. Clytemnestra is provoked into a homicidal rage toward her husband, King Agamemnon, for sacrificing their daughter Iphigenia to win the Trojan War. As Clytemnestra schemes with her lover, Aegisthus, to plot Agamemnon's death and fill the power vacuum in his wake, her two other children, Orestes and Electra, are sent into exile. And though the children eventually make their way back into the palace halls and mom's trust, paranoia abounds within every relationship (-a performance that started with smiles and ended with shrieks,- as Electra puts it). The novel is broken into sections focusing on Clytemnestra, Electra, and Orestes, and the novel's intensity--and to a large degree, its success--depends on who's doing the talking. Clytemnestra, narrating in the first person, is a captivating and terrifying figure, heartbroken and ruthless in her lust for power. (-The gurgling sound he would make when I cut his throat became my obsession,- she fumes.) But Orestes' portion of the tale, narrated in the third person, runs at a low boil of mustier fable-speak despite being packed with themes of protection, vengeance, and self-defense. That makes the novel feel tonally disjointed, but throughout, Toibin captures the way that corruption breeds resentment and how resentment almost unstoppably breeds violence. The original myths established these characters as the gods' playthings, but Toibin reframes this version in -a time when the gods are fading,- the better to lay the blame for our human failures plainly on ourselves. This reboot of an ancient story is alternately fiery and plodding, but Toibin plainly grasps the reasons for its timelessness.

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December 1, 2016
Winner of the Los Angeles Times Book Prize and the Costa Novel Award, Toibin has also been thrice short-listed for the Man Booker Prize, including for The Testament of Mary, an incandescent little novel about a woman who doesn't believe that her child was the Son of God. Here he retells the story of quite a different kind of woman, the tempestuous Clytemnestra. With a nine-city tour.

Copyright 2016 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

September 4, 2017
Tóibín executes a masterful retelling of Aeschylus’s trilogy, the Oresteia, through the eyes of Clytemnestra, Orestes, and Electra. When Agamemnon sacrifices his and Clytemnestra’s daughter to the gods, he sets in motion a series of betrayals that not only end his life but also ruin his family for years to come. Capturing the conflict and betrayal proliferating within the family, the story provides a sympathetic yet suspect view of Clytemnestra as she navigates power in a society dominated by men. Stage and screen actor Stevenson’s regal delivery in her natural English accent is a perfect match for the courtly Clytemnestra as she assumes power, enacts revenge, and then quivers with surprise when her own accomplice, the mysterious Aegisthus, betrays her. Actor Anson narrates Orestes’s portion of the tale, curious but fearful early on, as the character is kidnapped and hunted down, and later evincing a solemn maturity to convey the character’s anger and loss. Actor Nixon captures the maturing Electra’s transformation from an emotional and lively girl to a calm and calculating young woman. Together the three talented actors render Tóibín’s retelling of Greek tragedy back into the oral tradition from which it originated. A Scribner hardcover.

Starred review from March 15, 2017
Now it is your duty as the son of Agamemnon to revenge his murder, the late Greek king's son is admonished in Toibin's latest brilliant exploration of times past, following The Master (2010), his fictional homage to the great American storyteller Henry James, and The Testament of Mary (2013), a provocative portrayal of the mother of Jesus. Toibin's accomplishment here is to render myth plausible while at the same time preserving its high drama. The novel is told alternately from the points of view of Clytemnestra, Agamemnon's widow (and his murderer, a fact that is not kept from the reader); Agamemnon's son, Orestes, who is given the aforementioned advice to revenge his father; and Electra, the younger and more practical daughter of Agamemnon and Clytemnestra. The older daughter, Iphigenia, was sacrificed to the gods by her father in order to be granted favorable winds to take him to victory over Trojan forces, an act that inaugurates the internecine struggle Toibin revisits in this gripping saga. The selfish side of human nature is a hoary, always fresh theme for fiction, made tangible and graphic in Toibin's lush prose. HIGH-DEMAND BACKSTORY: With a critically acclaimed film version of his novel Brooklyn (2009) in circulation, Toibin remains a big draw, and robust publicity will ensure notice of his latest.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2017, American Library Association.)