The Shadow of Perseus is another female-centric retelling of ancient Greek myths, this one the story of Perseus, the purported son of Danae and Zeus, slayer of Gorgons (Medusa) and all-round hero. Author Heywood leaves the Greek gods in the background, having them serve merely as distant gods and soothsayers, not involved much in the day-to-day life of humans. This leaves humans as heavily flawed men and women.
The story is told from the points of view of the three women who molded Perseus, now a simple man, not a demigod: Danae his mother, Medusa the Gorgon, and Andromeda his wife. Pregnant Danae, thrown out to see in a boat, is rescued and raises Perseus with love and devotion, not realizing that she is spoiling him. When she sends him off to sea to learn the manly arts, he interacts with Medusa. Her snakes and story are not of the legend, but something entirely different. Later in the same voyage, he purports to rescue Andromeda from the sea, but in fact, kidnaps her and forces her to become his bride, revealing his true state as a spoiled young man with an inferiority complex and anger management issues.
As mentioned above, the three women move from supporting actors to front and center while revealing their own frailties. Danae is scarred emotionally from her father’s attempt to kill her and the child prophesied to kill him, by placing her in a small boat and nailing shut the opening with her inside. Medusa, likewise, is scarred from a brutal rape by a priest and the shame the people in her village heaped upon her. Andromeda, kidnapped from her loving family, learns to manipulate Perseus with kind words, hiding her true revulsion in something like a Stockholm syndrome. Danae eventually understands what Andromeda is up to and joins in her daughter-in-law’s plans to control Perseus.
The story of The Shadow of Perseus is engrossing (I finished it in a few hours), but I’m not sure it counts as a “retelling” of a Greek myth. The women may make the story female-centric, but I’m not sure they qualify as feminists, nor am I certain any of the three women manage to rise above their traumatic pasts. The only admirable men at Andromeda’s father and her true fiancé Phineas, and Danae’s uncle.
The prose is simplistic and lacks the majesty of Circe or The Song of Achilles by Madeline Miller or Clytemnestra’s Bind by Susan C. Wilson.
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The Shadow of Perseus (Dutton, February 21, 2023) is available through:
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You can read my reviews of Madeline Miller’s Circe here and The Song of Achilles here.
You can read my review of Susan C. Wilson’s Clytemnestra’s Bind here.
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