Introduction

"A novel that is as intoxicating and hypnotic as the sacred smoke inhaled by the oracles."--Elizabeth Knox, author of The Vintner's Luck and The Dreamhunter Duet.

"An engaging, subversive reimagining of the tale of the eponymous Greek heroine who is upheld as a shining example of the dutiful wife for her selfless sacrifice."--Jacqueline Carey, author of Kushiel's Mercy

In Greek mythology, Alcestis is known as the good wife; she loved her husband so much that she died to save his life and was sent to the underworld in his place. In this poetic and vividly imagined debut, Katharine Beutner gives voice to the woman behind the ideal, bringing to life the world of Mycenaean Greece, a world peopled by capricious gods, where royal women are confined to the palace grounds and passed as possessions from father to husband.

Alcestis tells of a childhood spent with her sisters in the bedchamber where her mother died giving birth to her and of her marriage at the age of fifteen to Admetus, the young king of Pherae, a man she barely knows, who is kind but whose heart belongs to a god. She also tells the part of the story that's never been told: What happened to Alcestis in the three days she spent in the underworld before being rescued by Heracles? In the realm of the dead, Alcestis falls in love with the goddess Persephone and discovers the true horror and beauty of death.

Katharine Beutner grew up in Lancaster, Pennsylvania. She earned a BA in classical studies from Smith College in 2003, and she recently completed an MA in creative writing at the University of Texas at Austin, where she is currently a PhD student in eighteenth-century British literature. Her work has appeared in Lady Churchill's Rosebud Wristlet. Alcestis is her first novel.

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Excerpt

They knew the child’s name only because her mother died
cursing it, clutching at the bloodied bedclothes and spitting out
the word as if it tasted sour on her tongue. After a few minutes
her tongue stilled, and her limbs too, until she lay on the bed
gray and cold as stone. The servants stood around the bed in a
rough circle, looking down at the tangled mess the queen had
made and thinking of the rituals her death would require, the
sacrifi ces, the burning herbs nailed in clusters to the mud-brick
walls. The room smelled of copper and sweat, as if a great battle
had been fought within it. Anaxibia had warred with death and
lost; for the moment, at least, her baby daughter had won.
They’d wiped the babe off, tied the cord, and swaddled her
in a blanket. She squalled at fi rst, face purple with incoherent
rage, but then she lay quietly in her cradle as her mother’s body
hardened and cooled. She knew nothing of death. She came into
the world as any girl might, unexpected, tolerated. If she hadn’t
been a royal child, she might have been left alone on a hillside
to die nameless beneath the summer sun. As it was, Pelias had
no time for the naming of girl children. The king would abandon
the palace after hearing of his wife’s death, taking a group
of his best fi ghting men to hunt boar for the funeral feast, and would not return until the morning of her burial day. For two
days the palace would be empty except for the children and
the servants and the slaves and the animals and the body of the
dead queen, swelling in the heat. The queen’s spirit had already
departed, trailing after the god Hermes like a cloak in the dust.
The god had looked down at the baby in her cradle, a long,
silent look, but she had not seen him—or if she had, she had
not cried at the sight.
But now the baby wriggled, bleated like a lamb. The queen’s
body servant sighed and wiped her bloody hands on her shift.
Stirred out of reverie, the other women shook their heads and
blinked in the low light.
The women leaned down and rolled Anaxibia’s body over
so they could strip the linens from the bed. The queen lay
slumped on her side, her brown braids mussed and tangled,
her face smooth. She was twenty-four years old. The baby girl
in the cradle was her fi fth child, and the other children had
been waiting for hours, clustered outside the bedchamber, to
see their mother and new sibling. Their thin voices slipped into
the room beneath the closed door. The women looked at each
other. “Go on,” said the head maid, nodding to two of the others.
“They must be told. And the king too.”
The chosen messengers left. After a moment, the children
began to wail outside the door, their cries fading as the maids
hurried them out of the women’s quarters. The head maid
turned back to the dead queen, then looked at the serious faces
of the two other serving women who’d stayed behind, looked
over at the baby in the cradle. She bent down to pick up the
child and balanced the baby’s small damp head against her
shoulder. “Alcestis,” she said and looked to the others for confirmation. “That what you heard too?”
Dry eyed and solemn, they nodded. They’d seen this bloody
struggle too often to weep. “Alcestis,” said Anaxibia’s body servant,
and looked at the baby, who had fallen asleep in the head
maid’s arms. “Poor thing.”
The head maid put the baby down on her back in the crib.
She sent a servant to fetch the kitchen maid who’d just borne a
son, sent another to call the men to bring oils and cloths. The
wet nurse took some time to arrive, but Alcestis did not cry.
She lay in the cradle and listened to the skim and slap of the
women’s hands spreading oil on her mother’s fl esh, the silky
whispers as they combed out and rebraided her mother’s hair.
She breathed in the smell of the room, the bodily stench of
failed combat with the gods, the reek of a thread snipped. The
women watched the baby with nervous eyes as they worked.
The two who lived to hear of Alcestis’ death—if one could call
it death—would recall her birth then, and mutter to each other
about the way the girl had opened her tiny mouth to suck in
the fouled air as if it could replace her mother’s milk. Perhaps
she’d grown used to death then, they’d say. Perhaps she’d been
hungry for it all her life.
I don’t remember those moments, those sounds, those smells.
But this is what I imagine from what I was told as I grew older.
This, said the maids, the servants, my sisters—this was how
your story began.
... view entire excerpt...

Discussion Questions

1. Were you familiar with the myth of Alcestis before reading this novel? If so, what version of
the story had you encountered before? Did knowing—or not knowing—Alcestis's story in advance affect how you read the book?

2. How do the characters of Apollo, Hermes, Persephone, and Hades seem similar to or different from other portrayals of the Olympian gods?

3. What does religion mean to the human characters in the novel? Consider Alcestis's statement that "Gods did as they liked, and mortals struck or kissed or killed each other without knowing why then sat in the dust of battle and talked until they were hoarse, trying to explain the actions of Olympians" (p. 114). Do all Achaeans seem to feel the same way Alcestis does, or not?

4. If you were to draw a diagram of the novel's structure, how might you do it? How does Alcestis's journey to the underworld resemble the journeys of Odysseus, Aeneas, or Orpheus—or stories of journeys to the underworld in other mythical traditions? In what ways is it different?

5. How do relationships between men and women work in Achaean society? What about relationships between women, or between men? Is Alcestis a good wife to Admetus? Why or
why not?

6. Alcestis and her sister Pisidice have a contentious relationship. What do you see as the sources of friction in their relationship? Why do you think Alcestis gets along so much better with Hippothoe than with Pisidice?

7. What does Alcestis fear most as a young girl? What does she fear most during her time in the underworld? What do these fears suggest to you about her culture and her own identity within that culture? How do you think her time in the underworld has changed or affected her fears?

8. Alcestis finds herself unable to resist Persephone. Many other human characters in Greek mythology have similar problems resisting the wiles of gods or goddesses. How do you think the behavior of humans who are seduced by gods should be judged? Are they responsible for their
actions?

9. This novel features the death of Alcestis's sister Hippothoe, a troubled marriage, and a romance set in the underworld. Do you find the novel dark, or not? If not, what elements of the book prevent it from feeling depressing?

10. What do you think of Hades' reaction to Persephone's pursuit of Alcestis? Why might he react this way?

11. What sort of future do you project for Alcestis and Admetus? For Alcestis and Persephone? How does the epilogue complicate their futures? What was your reaction to learning about Alcestis's ties to figures in other myths, such as the warriors who invaded Troy?

12. The novel offers its account of Alcestis's life as an alternative to the traditional mythical representation of her. What do you think the novel is trying to say about myth and truth, or about the different ways mythological stories are interpreted? What responsibility do you think authors have to be truthful when writing fiction? What forces do you think affect the development and dissemination of myths?

Weblinks

»	Publisher's Book Info
»	Author Katherine Beutner's web site

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