Norma Jeane Baker of Troy

December 16, 2019
It is a hallmark of Carson’s style to leave the juxtaposition of two cultural entities unexplained. The latest stirring verse play by Carson (Nox) takes this practice to its extreme, crafting its title (and only) character by overlaying Marilyn Monroe and Euripides’s Helen, who went to Egypt during the Trojan War and was replaced in Troy by an illusion: “I never went to Troy, that was a cloud, don’t forget this,” she declares. Carson doesn’t attempt to create direct correlations, but rather compresses two women who both entranced the world to study loneliness, motherhood, and the motivations and costs of war in the process: “Hell smells stale. Fights aren’t about anything, fights are about themselves.” Carson wades through the implications of certain Greek words, generating some of her signature lyricism: “Sometimes I think language should cover its own eyes when it speaks,” she writes in “History of War: Lesson 3.” While readers will find themselves more readily oriented if they have some familiarity with both Monroe and the Euripidean Helen—especially when Norma Jeane’s daughter Hermione appears, having overdosed, to mark the distance between the two women’s lives—those willing to follow Carson will be rewarded with her ability to conjure a sentence and character beyond any illusion.

February 1, 2020

Poet and classics scholar Carson (Float) reimagines Euripides' play Helen in this genre-blurring performance piece, merging the mythic persona of Helen of Troy--whose abduction by Paris triggered the Trojan War--with that of the eponymous Norma Jeane, aka Marilyn Monroe, during the troubled filming of Fritz Lang's Clash by Night in 1952. Carson adopts Euripides' premise that the abducted Helen was only a phantasm created by feuding gods, suggesting that the catastrophic Trojan War--and by implication all war--was fought literally over nothing. Interspersed among Helen/Norma Jeane's soliloquies on warfare, deception, motherhood, and sexism ("Oh my darlings/ they tell you you're born with a precious pearl./ Truth is, / it's a disaster to be a girl") are etymological interludes, at once erudite and mordant, plumbing the origins and cultural ramifications of words such as wound, deception, and slavery. VERDICT Lest this all sound academic or overly meta, one need not be a student of ancient Greek drama or a pop culture historian to admire Carson's unique artistry. The poet's wry, pointed diction and radiant precision (e.g., Truman Capote "had a voice like a negligee, always/ slipping off one bare shoulder, just a bit") bring Helen/Norma Jeane to vivid life as she attempts to "save [tragedy] from sorrow."--Fred Muratori, Cornell Univ. Lib., Ithaca, NY

Copyright 2020 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

February 1, 2020
This little grenade of a book is difficult to categorize. It's a performance piece and a treatise on war and beauty, reality and fakery, bombshell and bombing?with ancient Greek etymology lessons woven in to show us how the small and everyday becomes epic, and vice versa. Marilyn Monroe (ne� Norma Jeane Baker) is fused here with Helen of Troy, and elements of both milieus?Homer and Hollywood?populate the narrative. As one expects from MacArthur fellow Carson, this isn't a simple juxtaposition of the effects of two pretty women. Instead, the work draws together complicated conclusions that feel almost obvious once Carson shows them to us?like having a complex math problem explained by an expert. For example, Norma Jeane's knitting ('People laugh when I say it keeps me sane") and Helen's "livestreaming the war at Troy onto a tapestry" anchor them in a reality their sensuality has caused to spin out of control. It's easy to imagine the blunt beauty of Carson's language being spoken and sung on stage.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2020, American Library Association.)