Read more
'Passionate and gripping' - Madeline Miller, bestselling author of Circe
A powerful retelling of Oedipus and Antigone that casts fresh light on the women the myths overlooked. From the Sunday Times bestselling author of Stone Blind, Natalie Haynes.
My siblings and I have grown up in a cursed house, children of cursed parents . . .
Jocasta is just fifteen when she is ordered to marry the King of Thebes, an old man she has never met. But it is her duty to produce an heir, who will alter the course of her life forever.
Ismene is the same age when she is attacked in the palace she calls home. Since the day of her parents' tragic deaths, it had been the one place she felt safe. But with a single act of violence, all that is about to change.
With the turn of these two events, a tragedy is set in motion. But not as you know it . . .
'A wonderful and inventive take on an ancient tale' - The Times
'Haynes's fascination with this long vanished world is evident in every line' - The Guardian
'Glorious, gripping and brutal . . . I loved it' - Victoria Derbyshire, journalist and broadcaster
-
Praise for Natalie Haynes:
'Witty, gripping, ruthless' - Margaret Atwood, author of The Handmaid's Tale, via X
'The great champion of women in Greek myth' - Daily Mail
'A fierce feminist exploration of female rage, written with wit and empathy' - Glamour
About the author
Natalie Haynes is a writer and broadcaster. She is the author of The Amber Fury, The Children of Jocasta, and A Thousand Ships, which was shortlisted for the Women’s Prize for Fiction in 2020. Her non-fiction book about women in Greek Myth, Pandora’s Jar, was a New York Times Bestseller in 2022. She has written and performed eight series of her BBC Radio 4 show, Natalie Haynes Stands Up for the Classics. In 2015 she was awarded the Classical Association Prize for her work in bringing Classics to a wider audience. Stone Blind is her fourth novel.
Summary
From the Women's Prize-shortlisted author Natalie Haynes comes a stunning reimagining of the Oedipus and Antigone myths, revealing a new side of an ancient story . . .
Foreword
From the Women's Prize shortlisted author Natalie Haynes comes a stunning reimagining of the Oedipus and Antigone myths, revealing a new side of an ancient story . . .
Additional text
Haynes has written her own version of the tragedy, finding new space in the narrative by looking at it through the eyes of two characters neglected by antiquity: Oedipus’s mother/bride Jocasta and their youngest daughter Ismene . . . Some of this novel’s greatest satisfactions come from the way Haynes translates the story out of the mythic and into a naturalistic register of love, loss and ambition . . . The ancient city state comes vividly alive in Haynes’s hands, and canny deviations from the archetypal outline keep the suspense going. In The Children of Jocasta, Haynes has written a fine new story between the old lines.
Report
A passionate and gripping account of a famously dysfunctional family. Haynes balances a fresh take on the material with a deep love for her sources, wearing her scholarship with grace, and giving new voice to the often-overlooked but fascinating Jocasta and Ismene. Madeline Miller, Women's Prize winning author of The Song of Achilles and Circe
