From the thrilling imagination of bestselling, award-winning Colm Toibin comes this ambitious, violent and modern retelling of one of our oldest and most enduring stories.
Judged, despised, cursed by gods she has long since lost faith in, the murderess Clytemnestra tells of the deception of Agamemnon, how he sacrificed her eldest daughter - her beloved Iphigenia - to the Trojan campaign; how Clytemnestra used what power she had, seducing the prisoner Aegisthus, turning the government against its lord; plotting the many long years until her beacon fires announce the king's return.
Electra, daughter of a murdered father, loyal subject of the rightful king, studies Clytemnestra and her lover with cold anger and slow-burning cunning.
She watches as they walk the gardens and corridors of the palace. She waits for the traitors to become complacent, to believe they are finally safe; she waits for her exiled brother, Orestes, for the boy to become a warrior, for fate to follow him home. She watches and she waits, until her spies announce her brother's return...
Barb takes care of the web orders here at Boffins, and is your contact for book club enquiries. She spends all her spare time curled up on the couch reading and for the last several years has reviewed books on the Afternoon Program on ABC radio Perth.
In this wonderful reimagining of the Greek myth of Agamemnon, Clytemnestra and their family, Colm Toibin gives centre stage to a revengeful Clytemnestra, furious at her husband's actions in sacrificing their daughter Iphigenia to the gods of war. Her plan to rid herself of her husband and begin afresh results in a spiral of violence involving her remaining children, Orestes and Electra. House of Names manages to be both action packed and elegant, not an easy feat. Even if you are familiar with the Greek tale, the change in perspective and added voices of characters previously in the background provides new interest. Initially sympathetic to Clytemnestra's plight, I soon became horrified as the violence got out of control and found myself pinning my hopes on Orestes.
