A stunning reimagining of the Oedipus and Antigone stories told from the perspectives of the women the myths overlooked.
Natalie Haynes is a writer and broadcaster. She is the author of The Amber Fury, which was shortlisted for the Scottish Crime Book of the Year award, and a non-fiction book about Ancient History, The Ancient Guide to Modern Life. She has written and presented two series of the BBC Radio 4 show, Natalie Haynes Stands Up for the Classics. In 2015, she was awarded the Classical Association Prize for her work in bringing Classics to a wider audience.
Natalie Haynes takes on Sophocles in her vivid and affecting second
novel
*Observer*
Glorious, gripping and brutal . . . I loved it
*Victoria Derbyshire*
New life is breathed into a powerful ancient story through Natalie
Haynes's clever and vivid story telling.
*Martha Kearney*
Nearly every page of Natalie Haynes's The Children of Jocasta could
stand alone as poetry. This is a visceral, engrossing, and
meticulously-crafted reimagining of two of the most important
stories of all time. A truly remarkable feat
*Dr Amanda Foreman*
In this gripping novel, Haynes takes us to the breaking heart of
one epically dysfunctional family and makes heroines of those
previously doomed to be spectators of their own tragedy
*Damian Barr, author of Maggie & Me*
A fresh, accessible take on a great story
*Lionel Shriver, author of We Need to Talk About Kevin*
Haynes is master of her trade, crafting perfect sentences and
believable characters who speak and think in delicately nuanced
language. [She] succeeds in breathing warm life into some of our
oldest stories to show how remarkably little basic human
relationships and emotions have changed
*Telegraph*
Haynes’s fascination with this long vanished world is evident in
every line . . . Her Thebes... is vividly captured: a place of hard
light and sharp shadows, dust, fountains and dry heat.
*Guardian*
Atmospherically evoking a landscape of longed-for lakes and dark
mountains, Haynes also subtly explores the “space between us and
them” – between rulers and the people; parents and children; our
personas and most secret selves
*Observer*
A wonderful and inventive take on an ancient tale
*The Times*
Haynes has written her own version of the tragedy, finding new
space in the narrative by looking at it through the eyes of two
characters neglected by antiquity: Oedipus’s mother/bride Jocasta
and their youngest daughter Ismene . . . Some of this novel’s
greatest satisfactions come from the way Haynes translates the
story out of the mythic and into a naturalistic register of love,
loss and ambition . . . The ancient city state comes vividly alive
in Haynes’s hands, and canny deviations from the archetypal outline
keep the suspense going. In The Children of Jocasta, Haynes has
written a fine new story between the old lines.
*Spectator*
A passionate and gripping account of a famously dysfunctional
family. Haynes balances a fresh take on the material with a deep
love for her sources, wearing her scholarship with grace, and
giving new voice to the often-overlooked but fascinating Jocasta
and Ismene.
*Madeline Miller, Orange Prize winning author of The Song of
Achilles*
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