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A Novel
by Caro De Robertis
Book Reviewed by:Perfect for fans of Circe and Black Sun, this bold and subversive feminist retelling of the Greek myth of Psyche and Eros explores the power of queer joy and freedom.
Young, headstrong Psyche has captured the eyes of every suitor in town and far beyond with her tempestuous beauty, which has made her irresistible as a woman yet undesirable as a wife. Secretly, she longs for a life away from the expectations and demands of men. When her father realizes that the future of his family and town will be forever cursed unless he appeases an enraged Aphrodite, he follows the orders of the Oracle, tying Psyche to a rock to be ravaged by a monstrous husband. And yet a monster never arrives.
When Eros, nonbinary deity of desire, sees Psyche, she cannot fulfill her promise to her mother Aphrodite to destroy the mortal young woman. Instead, Eros devises a plan to sweep Psyche away to an idyllic palace, hidden from the prying eyes of Aphrodite, Zeus, and the outside world. There, against the dire dictates of Olympus, Eros and Psyche fall in love. Each night, Eros visits Psyche under the cover of impenetrable darkness, where they both experience untold passion and love. But each morning, Eros flies away before light comes to break the spell of the palace that keeps them safe.
Before long, Psyche's nights spent in pleasure turn to days filled with doubts, as she grapples with the cost of secrecy and the complexities of freedom and desire. Restless and spurred by her sisters to reveal Eros's true nature, she breaks her trust and forces a reckoning that tests them both—and transforms the very heavens.
Told in bold and sparkling prose from "a brilliant and luminous writer" (Madeline Miller, New York Times bestselling author), The Palace of Eros transports us to a magical world imbued by divine forces as well as everyday realities, where palaces glitter with magic even as ordinary people fight for freedom in a society that fears the unknown.
Excerpt
The Palace of Eros
Eros was not surprised when her mother summoned her to talk about that pesky mortal girl. Human rumors often veered into absurdity, but in this case they were right: Eros's mother, Aphrodite, the goddess of love and beauty, was jealous.
Her jealousy stormed through halls, withered grapes on the vine. It chafed and howled and turned the sky a sooty gray.
Eros watched the darkening through her bedroom window, from her own wing of the palace the two of them shared, and which was not supposed to be their primary home, first because they were Olympians and meant to share that great mountaintop palace with the other gods, and second because Aphrodite had a husband, Hephaestus, who was good and kind, and a good wife stays by her husband's side. But Aphrodite had no interest in being a good wife, or any sort of wife at all. Both she and Eros preferred to hive off to their separate palace, their mother-and-daughter haven, their glowing refuge from the noise and ways of ...
The prose in The Palace of Eros features stunning lyricism, particularly in the chapters written from Psyche's first-person perspective. Persisting in voicing her own story, Psyche's descriptions are built upon earthy and sensuous imagery. Within a context of femininity and soulful physical intimacy, Caro De Robertis's novel does the paramount work of representing nonbinary gender identity and gender fluidity, presenting a viable alternative to the heteronormativity of the traditional Greek myth in which Eros is strictly male...continued
Full Review
(1106 words)
(Reviewed by Isabella Zhou).
Angie Cruz, author of Dominicana
Caro De Robertis is the reason I read. It's impossible not to fall in love with her characters, who are fierce, courageous and adventurous. Her powerful storytelling captivates the reader from start to finish. Cristina García, author of Dreaming in Cuban and Vanishing Maps
The Palace of Eros is a riveting, sublime, magical, and wildly subversive meditation on love, sex, mythology, and belonging ... brilliant and beautiful and erotic and insightful and unlike anything I've ever read. I couldn't ask for more. Madeline Miller, author of Circe and The Song of Achilles
Caro De Robertis is a brilliant and luminous writer.
In the original Greek myth that The Palace of Eros retells, Psyche is the youngest daughter of a king and the most beautiful woman in all the land. She is mistaken for Aphrodite, the goddess of beauty, and worshiped accordingly. An envious Aphrodite commands her son, Eros, to shoot Psyche with his arrows of love and make her become enamored with a hideous beast. Her plan backfires when Eros falls in love with Psyche.
When the Oracle proclaims that Psyche should be taken by a winged beast as punishment for her father's arrogance over her beauty, she is left in mourning clothes on a high cliff. But the phrase "winged beast" carries a metaphorical double meaning — it is also a reference to Eros and his "beastly" habit of making odd ...
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