2024/073: Herc — Phoenicia Rogerson

Maybe I was beautiful enough to launch ships, after all. But when I looked down I saw blisters on my hands from scrubbing blood from the floor. That was the wife I had to be.[loc. 643]

I've had variable experiences, and some great disappointments, with the current flood of retellings of Greek myth, so I was trepidatious about Herc -- especially when I saw it described as a 'queer feminist retelling'. My reservations were unfounded: it is immense fun, vastly tragic, and told in a multitude of voices that are distinctive in themselves, even if the names (Iolaus, Iole, Iapetus) can confuse those unfamiliar with the minutae of the myth.

This is not Hercules' book, but a book told by the people who knew him, some of whom speak to us from Hades, where Hercules has sent them. We hear from Hylas (drowned by nymphs), Megara (slain, with their children, while Hercules was <s>drunk</s> possessed by the goddess Hera), Linus (beaten to death with a lyre for criticising Hercules' playing), Augeas (murdered over a dispute about a cleaning job), Iphitus (pushed off a cliff while Hercules was possessed by the goddess Hera), ...

Not everyone is dead. Priam, king of Troy, grumbles about the aftermath of Hercules' solution to a sea-monster threatening Troy (the link goes to a photo of the Hesione vase, which is discussed in the excellent The First Fossil Hunters): Theseus is grateful to Hercules for rescuing him from Hades, Omphale recalls fondly that 'when I wore his cloak and he my dress, I saw him smile more than I did before. There was a lightness to his voice'. And there is a virtuoso chapter told from the points of view of all fifty daughters of Thespius. Hercules himself is glimpsed only in his love letters to Hylas, and in his reflection in the eyes of others -- many of whom have reason to loathe him. And yet I couldn't help but feel some sympathy for him, always losing the ones he loved to Hera's implacable hatred. (Or, to be fair, to his own poor impulse control.)

Yes, the language is quite modern ('bro', 'cuz') and some of the chapters, such as 'Graffiti', didn't work as well as others. (I am also disproportionately vexed by the line about Diomedes' mares having 'fathered what seemed to be every horse in Greece'. Mares, dammit!) But Herc is a delightful mosaic of opinions and incidents that form, together, the shape of a monstrous hero, a man 'frightened by fragility', craving the softness and strength of his male lovers, a courageous man who tries hard to be better than he's been. I shall look out for more by Phoenicia Rogerson, whose debut this is.

Fulfils the ‘includes a wedding’ rubric of the 52 books in 2024 challenge.