Published in 2022
381 pages
8 hours and 41 minutes
Natalie Haynes is a writer, broadcaster, and classicist. She was once a stand-up comic, but retired when she realised she preferred tragedy to comedy. She has published three novels, The Amber Fury (The Furies – US) in 2014, The Children of Jocasta (2017) and A Thousand Ships (2019), which was shortlisted for the Women’s Prize for Fiction 2020. She has also published two non-fiction book, The Ancient Guide to Modern Life (2010) and Pandora’s Jar (2020). She also has a radio series, Natalie Haynes Stands Up for the Classics, which is available on BBC Sounds and Audible.
What is this book about?
Natalie Haynes—the Women’s Prize-shortlisted author of A Thousand Ships—brings the infamous Medusa to life as you have never seen her before….
So to mortal men, we are monsters. Because of our teeth, our flight, our strength. They fear us, so they call us monsters.
Medusa is the only mortal in a family of gods. Growing up with her sisters, she quickly realises that she is the only one who gets older, experiences change, feels weakness. Her mortal lifespan gives her an urgency that her family will never know.
When, in Athene’s temple, desire pushes Poseidon to commit the unforgivable, Medusa’s mortal life is changed forever. Athene, furious at the sacrilege committed, directs her revenge on Medusa. The punishment is that she is turned into a Gorgon: sharp teeth, snakes for hair and a gaze that will turn any living creature to stone. Appalled by her own reflection, Medusa can no longer look upon anything she loves without destroying it. She condemns herself to a life of solitude in the shadows to limit her murderous range.
That is, until Perseus embarks upon a fateful quest to fetch the head of a Gorgon….
This is the story of how a young woman became a monster. And how she was never really a monster at all.
