Stone Blind
Medusa's Story
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- $9.99
Publisher Description
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 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 realizes 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 the sea god, Poseidon, commits an unforgivable act in her sacred temple the goddess, Athene, takes her revenge on an innocent - and Medusa’s life is changed forever. Appalled by her own reflection: snakes have replaced her hair and she realises that her gaze can now turn any living creature to stone. Medusa can no longer look upon anyone she loves without destroying them,, and so condemns herself to a life lived in shadow and solitude to limit her murderous rage.
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.
Praise for Natalie Haynes:
‘With her trademark passion, wit, and fierce feminism… her thoughtful portraits will linger with you long after the book is finished’ - Madeline Miller
‘Haynes combines a wide-ranging knowledge of the original myths with a gift for compelling narrative’ - The Times
‘Natalie Haynes is both a witty and an erudite guide. She wears her extensive learning lightly and deftly drags the Classics into the modern world’ - Kate Atkinson
‘Haynes is master of her trade . . . She succeeds in breathing warm life into some of our oldest stories’ - Telegraph
‘Haynes is the nation’s greatest muse’ - Adam Rutherford
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Haynes (A Thousand Ships) reframes the story of Medusa from Greek mythology as one of victim-shaming in this sharp retelling. Haynes recasts Medusa, the only mortal from a family of gods, not as a monster but as survivor of rape by Poseidon, whose wife, Athena, then punishes her for it. As Medusa deals with her new life with a head of snakes and a gaze that turns people to stone, Haynes interjects by addressing the reader with a question: "I'm wondering if you still think of her as a monster.... I suppose it depends on what you think that word means." Haynes's inventive reappraisal extends to her narrative devices, including rueful passages from the perspective of Medusa's severed head ("I have a much lower opinion of mortal men than did, for reasons which I would assume were obvious"), and she invites the reader into Medusa's point of view with rich sensory details: "She could hear the cormorants arguing with the gulls and she knew exactly which rocks they had perched on before picking their quarrel." Even before the plot builds toward Perseus's pursuit of Medusa, Hayes conveys an urgency to Medusa's life as a mortal woman among vengeful gods. Fans of feminist retellings will love this.
