Explore Manhattan with the Greek-American Gods in The Immortals
The nameless protagonist of Wittgenstein’s Mistress is probably the last person on earth, and she spends part of her time typing into the void, relating anecdotes about musicians and artists and people she knew. She also shares imagined conversations between the people of Greek myth, sat down at a Thanksgiving table or for Helen of Troy’s birthday. The Greek pantheon is very much an extended family, everyone brothers or cousins or aunts or wives (or several of these at once), and imagining them sharing a rowdy communal dinner is jarring and funny, allowing us to access the mythic on a more personal level, rather than as legends of ancient toga people who really seem to dig revenge.
The Immortals (Olympus Bound Series #1)
Hardcover $25.00
The Immortals (Olympus Bound Series #1)
Hardcover $25.00
Jordanna Max Brodsky accomplishes a similar feat in her debut novel, The Immortals, though I think the stakes are higher. We are introduced first to Selene DiSilva, who was once Artemis, Goddess of the Hunt, but now lives in New York City. Her powers, like those of her entire mythic family, have diminished over the centuries, after the pantheon was turned out of prominence by the rise of Christianity. Some are doing better—Hermes is a movie producer—and some are doing worse—Selene’s own mother, Leto, is dying in hospice. Yet if Selene doesn’t have the Artemis’ unerring aim or powers of healing, she still goes out every night to help women who are subject to domestic violence. She’s a private eye and an avenging angel, enacting her ancient duties in a modern context.
Selene gets involved in solving the murder of a classics professor named Helen (hmm, interesting), killed in a manner reminiscent of the rites of Greek Mystery cults. The mysteries of those cults never did involve human sacrifice, but someone is using the power of human death to…well, no one really knows. Selene begins working with one of Helen’s colleagues, fellow classicist Theo Schultz, feeding him hints of the cultic elements and letting his professorial brain fill the gaps. She can’t quite go to the police herself, given that she was on the force mid-century, and there are still people who might recognize her; explaining away eternal youth is a sticky wicket.
Theo is a funny mix between tragic and comic. He does things like shout, “Holy Roman Empire!” when he’s startled, which is near the dorkiest thing I’ve ever read. But then, he’s also authentically grieving for Helen, who was his girlfriend a year ago, before he screwed it up for the usual commitment-phobic reasons. She’s since been dating his close friend, but of course, he still carries a torch. He sorts out the cult elements of the murder in a very cool sequence reminiscent of the symbology in The DaVinci Code. (He reads a little like Robert Langdon, actually.) When he takes this information to the police, however, they can’t get over how much a lunatic he is, raving about ancient Greek secret societies. Do you have an alibi for the night of Helen’s murder, Professor Schultz? Grading papers alone, you say? Interesting.
The Immortals is, in the end, a smashing procedural, a race against a serial killer whose motives are based on the mythic past, taking all those dusty, droning myths, and turning them into something thrumming with life, relevant, real. It shares some similarities with Neil Gaiman’s American Gods, ruminating over similar questions: where does the past intersect with the present in meaningful ways? What do we do with our lives after time has passed us by? We no longer live in the world where Artemis and the rest of the pantheon held sway over life and death and everything in between, but the relevance of their messy, oh-so-human relationships will not diminish until families stop sitting down together and arguing.
Jordanna Max Brodsky accomplishes a similar feat in her debut novel, The Immortals, though I think the stakes are higher. We are introduced first to Selene DiSilva, who was once Artemis, Goddess of the Hunt, but now lives in New York City. Her powers, like those of her entire mythic family, have diminished over the centuries, after the pantheon was turned out of prominence by the rise of Christianity. Some are doing better—Hermes is a movie producer—and some are doing worse—Selene’s own mother, Leto, is dying in hospice. Yet if Selene doesn’t have the Artemis’ unerring aim or powers of healing, she still goes out every night to help women who are subject to domestic violence. She’s a private eye and an avenging angel, enacting her ancient duties in a modern context.
Selene gets involved in solving the murder of a classics professor named Helen (hmm, interesting), killed in a manner reminiscent of the rites of Greek Mystery cults. The mysteries of those cults never did involve human sacrifice, but someone is using the power of human death to…well, no one really knows. Selene begins working with one of Helen’s colleagues, fellow classicist Theo Schultz, feeding him hints of the cultic elements and letting his professorial brain fill the gaps. She can’t quite go to the police herself, given that she was on the force mid-century, and there are still people who might recognize her; explaining away eternal youth is a sticky wicket.
Theo is a funny mix between tragic and comic. He does things like shout, “Holy Roman Empire!” when he’s startled, which is near the dorkiest thing I’ve ever read. But then, he’s also authentically grieving for Helen, who was his girlfriend a year ago, before he screwed it up for the usual commitment-phobic reasons. She’s since been dating his close friend, but of course, he still carries a torch. He sorts out the cult elements of the murder in a very cool sequence reminiscent of the symbology in The DaVinci Code. (He reads a little like Robert Langdon, actually.) When he takes this information to the police, however, they can’t get over how much a lunatic he is, raving about ancient Greek secret societies. Do you have an alibi for the night of Helen’s murder, Professor Schultz? Grading papers alone, you say? Interesting.
The Immortals is, in the end, a smashing procedural, a race against a serial killer whose motives are based on the mythic past, taking all those dusty, droning myths, and turning them into something thrumming with life, relevant, real. It shares some similarities with Neil Gaiman’s American Gods, ruminating over similar questions: where does the past intersect with the present in meaningful ways? What do we do with our lives after time has passed us by? We no longer live in the world where Artemis and the rest of the pantheon held sway over life and death and everything in between, but the relevance of their messy, oh-so-human relationships will not diminish until families stop sitting down together and arguing.