When I read Madeline Miller’s The Song of Achilles years ago, I thought the writing was great but I really didn’t get into the book. Consequently, when Circe came out in 2018 I didn’t have any interest, even though I really do enjoy retellings of Greek myths. But this was the book selected for my local library’s September book club, and I love my book group, so I went ahead (more easily when my wife started it and was enjoying it). And guess what: I loved it!

I got almost all of my knowledge about Circe from the Odyssey, where she is an important antagonist who turns Odysseus’s men into pigs, though Odysseus deals with this rather quickly, even turning Circe into a kind of helper. While it makes sense that Circe has a past and her own story, I didn’t know it. I was delighted, then, to find in Circe a story that goes back to the earliest parts of Greek mythology, telling us a tale that crosses generations of humanity.

Circe is the daughter of the titan Helios, and this book starts back at her earliest days with her dysfunctional family. Her brother Aeëtes is the father of Medea. Her sister was Pasiphaë, the mother of the minotaur. All of these characters will play a role as we watch Circe transform into the woman who can change men into pigs and who will be banished to her island.

The writing, as with The Song of Achilles, is rich without being indulgent. I loved the various descriptions, which could be beautiful or, given the subject, horrific.

It sounds like Miller was working on a novel with Shakespeare’s The Tempest as the inspiration, but in 2021 she said Persephone “grabbed me with both hands,” so that is her next project. I’ll be ready whatever it is.