Black Ships

Starred review from January 7, 2008
Graham’s exquisite and bleak debut views the events of The Aeneid
through the oracle Gull, a disciple of the Lady of the Dead. Taken to the Lady’s temple after being lamed in a chariot accident, Gull quickly displays her power to see the future. Her first vision—black ships fleeing a burning city—lets her recognize Aeneas when he arrives after the fall of Wilusa (the Hittite name for Troy), hoping to save those sold into slavery. Gull joins Aeneas, and they take the few remaining people of Wilusa on a glorious journey to find their scattered brethren and a site where they can found a new city. Historians will admire Graham’s deft blending of Virgil’s epic story and historical fact, most notably the creation of Egyptian princess Basetamon to take the place of magnificently anachronistic Dido. Graham’s spare style focuses on action, but fraught meaning and smoldering emotional resonance overlay her deceptively simple words.

Starred review from February 15, 2008
Born to a slave taken at the fall of Troy, the child named Gull is chosen by the oracle Pythia to succeed her in service to the Lady of Death because of her prophetic visions. When survivors of a later assault on Troy, called Wilusa by its inhabitants, free their enslaved people, Gull accompanies the captain of the seven black ships, the Trojan Prince Aeneas, as they search for a place to call home. Drawing her inspiration from Virgil's "The Aeneid", debut author Graham re-creates a vivid picture of the ancient world, a mysterious place in which gods and goddesses speak to their chosen. Recent interest in Troy, the ancient Greek city-states, and the foundations of Western civilization may increase demand for this historically based fantasy and make it a strong addition to any library. [The author wowed librarians at an Orbit luncheon at last summer's ALA convention in Washington, DC.Ed.]

Copyright 2008 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

Starred review from February 1, 2008
In Grahams exceptional retelling of the Aeneid, the narrator is Gull, daughter of a Trojan captive and chosen when a child to be the voice of the Lady of the Dead, oracle and counselor to kings, in the city of Pylos. When nine black ships manned by Trojan exiles appear at Pylos, Gull must choose between remaining with the oracle or joining the remnant of her mothers people. She chooses to sail, and from the city of pirates to the temples of Byblos, from the cities of the Black Land (Egypt) to the caverns beneath Vesuvius, Gull guides Prince Aeneas on his quest to find a land where his people can start anew. The history behind the Iliad has been disputed since the days of Homer. Graham places her version at the end of the Bronze Age, when some catastrophe (still disputed by archaeologists) destroyed all Mediterrean civilizations save Egypts and ushered in a dark age. A plausible premise, superb characters, a plot that originally extrapolates from classical literature, history, and mythologyall make for a first-class, very readable first novel.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2008, American Library Association.)