Review: Elektra

Jennifer Saint, Elektra (Flatiron Books 2022)

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/58725016-elektra?ac=1&from_search=true&qid=upw59QMtpd&rank=1

This modern retelling of the Homeric myth, follows the lives and fates of three women—Elektra, Clytemnestra, and Cassandra.
Clytemnestra awaits the return home of the husband she hates. They’ve waited ten years. When Aegisthus creeps into their lives, Elektra is suspicious. Orestes grows.
There’s not much variance from Homer and Sophocles in terms of plot besides a more modern feel. For example, Apollo curses Cassandra because she refuses to sleep with him. Saint misses out some top scenes—Clytemnestra with Achilles when she believes he’s to wed her daughter—Iphigenia going meekly to the altar.
Watching the entire scenario from these three viewpoints—from the wrath of Achilles to Odysseus’ final trick to the torching of the topless towers—is something new. What set the Iliad apart from other epic poems of his era was that he told both sides of the story. Saint does the same, as we shift from Mycenae to Troy and back again.
With all the father-murdering and daughter-sacrificing that went on in the House of Atreus, you’d think the women would be pretty hard-nosed, too. They would have taken as read such vicissitudes of war as men squabbling over female war captives like so much booty and the throwing of princes’ babies off high rooves before they can grow up to seek revenge. But the women’s attitudes seem relatable.
It is beautifully written, as we follow the three women’s internal journeys. Cassandra’s description of the inner turmoil that comes along with her gift is very moving; she tends Apollo in the temple but is terrified of his visions. We feel Clytemnestra’s thirst for revenge and Elektra’s longing and the effect on the families as the war drags on and on for too many years.
Saint is also the author of the 2021 Ariadne.
This review first appeared in the Historical Novels Review.