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Title details for Helen of Troy, 1993 by Maria Zoccola - Wait list

Helen of Troy, 1993

Poems

by Maria Zoccola
Maria Zoccola
Audiobook
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*A New York Times Book Review Editors' Choice Pick*

"By turns hilarious and provocative, it's an affecting character study and modern mythic retelling." —Publishers Weekly, Books That Should Be on Your Radar in 2025

Part myth retelling, part character study, this sharp, visceral debut poetry collection reimagines Helen of Troy from Homer's Iliad as a disgruntled housewife in 1990s Tennessee.
In the hills of Sparta, Tennessee, during the early nineties, Helen decides to break free from the life that stifles her: marriage, motherhood, the monotonous duties of a Southern housewife. But leaving isn't the same thing as staying gone...

Rooted in a lush natural landscape, this stunning poetry collection explores Helen's isolation and rebellion as her expansive personality clashes with the social rigidity of her small town. In richly layered poems with settings that range from football games to Chuck E. Cheese to the bathroom of a Motel 6, Helen enters adulthood as a disaffected homemaker grasping for agency. She marries the wrong man, gives birth to a child she is not ready to parent, and embarks on an affair that throws her life into chaos. But she never surrenders ownership of her story or her choices, insisting to the reader: "if you never owned a bone-sharp biography... / i don't want to hear it. i want you silent. / i want you listening to me."

Blurring the line between mythology and modernity, Helen of Troy, 1993 is an unforgettable collection that shows the Homeric Helen like she's never been seen before.

  • Creators

  • Publisher

  • Release date

    January 14, 2025

  • Formats

    • OverDrive Listen audiobook

      • ISBN: 9781797186184
      • File size: 53117 KB
      • Duration: 01:50:37

  • Languages

    • English

  • Reviews

    • Publisher's Weekly

      Starred review from December 16, 2024
      In Zoccola’s exceptional debut, The Iliad’s Helen of Troy is reimagined as a wistful Tennessee housewife, dissatisfied with her marriage and wasted potential and reliving the glory days of her youth. If the premise sounds contrived, the execution delivers something unexpectedly magical. Helen’s life is far from stereotypically bereft, as evidenced in the hilariously histrionic “helen of troy runs to piggly wiggly”: “the pig is the place where all desire/ is consummated, each want made fat, made starch, made bone-in-flesh... sing, muse, of the manager’s special, two-for-one on yogurt cups,/ little debbies leaping for the cart.” The narrative through line involves Helen having an affair but ultimately returning to her husband (whom she refers to throughout as “the big cheese”) and daughter. She speaks in the aftermath of the affair of wanting more for her child than she has had: “gods of birds// who speak in human voices, i do not want to watch/ her walk through a life of small mercies and small choices./ I want each tooth spit up clean and delivered to her palm/ to plant as she chooses.” Zoccola provides a winning combination of humor and enough pathos to make Homer proud. Accessible yet deep, this will be adored by seasoned poetry fans and casual readers alike.

Formats

  • OverDrive Listen audiobook

subjects

Languages

  • English

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