I recently finished Madeline Miller’s The Song of Achilles. It’s a beautifully written book that follows the events of Homer’s The Iliad and the Trojan War through the eyes of Achilles’s lover Patroclus. 

A tale of gods, kings, immortal fame, and the human heart, The Song of Achilles is a dazzling literary feat that brilliantly reimagines Homer’s enduring masterwork, The Iliad. An action-packed adventure, an epic love story, and a marvelously conceived and executed page-turner, Miller’s monumental debut novel has already earned resounding acclaim from some of contemporary fiction’s brightest lights—and fans of Mary Renault, Bernard Cornwell, Steven Pressfield, and Colleen McCullough’s Masters of Rome series will delight in this unforgettable journey back to ancient Greece in the Age of Heroes.

Throughout history, there have been debates over the nature of the relationship between Achilles and Patroclus. Were they lovers? Were they the same age? All sources claim that Achilles had a great love for Patroclus; the question is: were they romantic? Plato believed they were lovers, and it appears that most ancient Greeks felt the same way.  Also, ancient sources usually agree that Patroclus was the older of the two and that the relationship was pederastic. Miller, however, writes that they are the same age. and The Song of Achilles is about the romantic relationship between the two men.

As a historian who has studied and is fascinated by Ancient Greece, I find Miller’s portrayal of the story fascinating. The Iliad is far from the only source for the mythology of Achilles, and many of those sources vary greatly from one another. Miller is able to take the various stories and show how they can all be accurate from various perspectives. For instance, in the story of Agamemnon, the leader of the Greeks, the king sacrifices his daughter for victory in Troy. (In Aeschylus’s play Agamemnon, this is one of the reasons his wife Clytemnestra murders him.) The daughter, Iphigenia, is brought to him in Aulis to be married to Achilles but secretly to be sacrificed to the goddess Artemis. Various sources say she knew she was to be sacrificed and did so willingly; others sources say she did not know. In 

The Song of Achilles, Miller weaves together the stories in a way to make both stories appear to be true. When the Greeks are horrified by the murder, Agamemnon claims Iphigenia knew her fate and sacrificed herself willingly. However, Achilles was close enough to see the shock on her face when she was killed. It really is an interesting way to write the story, and that is just one example.

Reviewing The Song of Achilles for The Guardian, Natalie Haynes commended the novel as “more poetic than almost any translation of Homer” and “a deeply affecting version of the Achilles story.” Mary Doria Russell similarly praised the novel in her review for The Washington Post, favorably citing its “prose as clean and spare as the driving poetry of Homer.” In his review for The New York Times, Daniel Mendelsohn criticized the book’s structure and, in particular, its tone. He compared the book unfavorably to young adult literature, describing The Song of Achilles as “a book that has the head of a young adult novel, the body of the Iliad, and the hindquarters of Barbara Cartland.” He also compared the novel’s prose to SparkNotes and softcore pornography. I agree with Haynes and Russell’s assessments, but Mendelsohn couldn’t be further from the truth. There is nothing young adult about the book, and it is mostly certainly not softcore pornographic. In fact, the sex scenes are hardly explicit. The book is beautifully written, moving, and historically fascinating.

Miller’s book is beautifully written and is a new retelling of the famous relationship. The book was published in 2011, so it is hardly a new book, but I just got around to reading it. I you have not read it and have an interest in Ancient Greek mythology, I highly recommend it. If you have read it, what was your opinion of the book?

The Song of Achilles is available from Amazon in Kindle, audiobook, or paperback.

Early this week I finished listening to the audiobook of Rainbow History Class: Your Guide Through Queer and Trans History (Hardcover, Kindle, Audible) by Hannah McElhinney. The author began Rainbow History Class by posting one-minute videos on TikTok. Eventually, it grew into the book Rainbow History Class. The book is meant to be a crash course in LGBTQ+ history from the ancient world through to lesser-known moments in recent history. While there wasn’t much in this book that I did not know, McElhinney is Australian, so the parts about Australia’s LGBTQ+ history was definitely interesting and new information.

The book is well-written, and it is just as it is described, a crash course in LGBTQ+ history. However, at just 216 pages, it can’t come close to covering all of LGBTQ+ history (and it’s not meant to). McElhinney does a good job in delving into more detail about the vignettes in LGBTQ+ history that she chose to discuss.

Overall, I enjoyed the book and would recommend it.

I haven’t reviewed a book on here for quite some time, but I finished one yesterday that I absolutely loved. It started out a little slow, but I think it had good reason. By the time I finished it, I didn’t want it to be over. The book is The Place Between by Kit Oliver. I’d never read anything by Kit Oliver before, but it was included in Audible’s Plus Catalog, which means with my subscription, I could listen for free. After reading the description, I knew I wanted to read it. Here’s what the blurb said:

Will Ned finally get a relationship right – even if it’s fake?

Ned’s exhausted from his divorce, single parenting, and graduate school, so when his boss comes up with a plan to ‘improve’ work-life balance, Ned wants no part of it.

But Dr. Charles Henry Abbot, PhD has other ideas. Once Ned’s least favorite professor and now his infuriating colleague, Ned needs Abbot’s help editing his dissertation. With their newly limited work schedules, Abbot suggests the worst idea Ned’s ever heard: pretend to date. Convince their co-workers – and their boss – that they’re in a relationship and nailing this whole personal life thing . . . and each other. 

It’s an awful idea, but, if it means a graduation cap, would faking a relationship be worth it, so Ned can finish his degree and move home to his daughter?

The Place Between is a steamy, m/m romance novel. If you like enemies to lovers, fake dating, and the thin line between bickering and flirting, then you’ll love this fast paced romance.

Buy The Place Between to watch Ned and Abbot’s fake relationship unfold as they stumble into the most real thing either of them has ever done.

First, I like the fake relationship to lovers genre of m/m romance. Boyfriend Material by Alexis Hall and Love Happens Anyway (A fake boyfriend for Christmas story) by RJ Scott are two of my favorites. I have listened to Boyfriend Materialat least twice, and I have listened to Love Happens Anyway every Christmas since I first read it. Usually, my friend Susan suggests m/m romance books to read, and she’s an excellent judge of a good book. There are times that I have liked a book that she didn’t, but rarely (if ever) have I not liked a book she recommended to me.

Anyway, I don’t want to give too much away about The Place Between, but I do want to tell you about one scene that really hit home for me, and Oliver describes in such real detail, that I wonder if he has experienced something similar himself. In the book, Ned defends his dissertation (I’m not giving anything away; it was bound to happen in the book). When he walks out of his defense, he’s a bundle of nerves. He second guesses himself and feels like he’s going to vomit any minute. While I never defended my dissertation, because I never finished it, I did take the comprehensive exams for my PhD: four days of written essays and two hours of an oral exam. The professors on my committee could ask me anything, and while I knew I had done very well on the written exams (one professor told me that she’d heard they were the best any of the professors on my committee had read), the oral exams were a different story.

When I was in graduate school, I was not a very confident person. I hated speaking in front of professors. I could speak to a classroom of students, but when it came to professors, I always felt like I couldn’t put together a coherent sentence. It wasn’t true and I wish someone had told me that back then and encouraged me more, but no one did. Sadly, it’s not the way graduate school often works. I am far more confident now, and doctorate or not, I have no problem talking in front of professors and teaching their classes. But back then was a completely different story. I stuttered and stammered through my oral exams. It was beyond awful, though I found out later, that they thought I’d done fine. They had decided after reading my written exams that I’d pass no matter what, so the oral exams were just a formality. I knew most of the answers I was asked during the oral exams with the exception of one question from the Europeanist on my committee, but I don’t feel bad about that since the Americanists all apparently said afterwards, “What the fuck was she talking about?”

Anyway, when I walked out of that conference room after that oral exam and knew the professors who’d just grilled me with questions was determining my fate, I was a mess. My friend Tony said that I was white as a ghost, and he was worried I’d either pass out or throw up. Luckily, I did neither and shortly afterwards they called me back in. Apparently, they had been talking about other things since they’d decided my fate before I went into the oral exams. I knew I had to sit one on one with another professor for the women’s history portion of my oral exams (she was not able to make it up on the day of my exam). I was not too worried. We sat and had coffee while she asked me questions, and it went much more smoothly.

So the scene when Ned defends his dissertation is one that really resonated with me. I really did love the book. I usually listen to books only in my car, but this one, I spent yesterday listening to because I just couldn’t stop myself, and I was sad when I finished it. Reading this book, I laughed, and at times, I even got a little teary eyed. I felt a whole range of emotions reading this book, and for me, that’s always a mark of a great writer. The only drawback to the audiobook is the way the narrator voices Abbot. Though it fits with the character somewhat, I think the voice was just too monotoned and unemotional. Otherwise, I think Jeremy Frazier, the books narrator, does an excellent job. At 12 hours and 55 minutes, it’s a long audiobook, but if you are like me, you will not want it to end.

If the book sounds interesting to you, I hope you will either read or listen to it. It’s available in Audible Plus and Kindle Unlimited. Also, there is a short coda (or extra chapter) to download when you finish the book.

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

I forgot to write a post last night before I went to bed. Sorry. I don’t have a lot to say, but I will give a book recommendation. This morning on my way to work, I finished listening to The Best Cook in the World by Rick Bragg. Years ago, I had read his book All Over But the Shoutin’ and loved it. A friend of mine suggested that I would like The Best Cook in the World because I love southern cooking and had written and had published an essay about the recipes my grandmother handed down to me. If you have an interest in southern cooking, I think you’ll like this book. Because it reminded me of my grandmother’s cooking, there were parts of the book that brought tears to my eyes as I remembered her, and then, there were the stories of Bragg’s relatives that often had me laughing out loud until I cried. The book really is a masterpiece of southern folklore, stories, and recipes, and yes, the recipes are included in the book. You can buy the hardcover, Kindle, or paperback and have access to the recipes written down, or you can do like I did and listen to it on audiobook with Bragg reading it. In my opinion, it is well worth it. While some of the recipes are done a bit differently from the way I learned them, this book took place in the hill country of north Alabama and not in the Black Belt of south central Alabama where I grew up. I still got a lot of enjoyment out of it, and it brought back many memories of my childhood in Alabama watching my mother and grandmother cook.

A few days ago, I finished Chasten Buttigieg’s autobiography, I Have Something to Tell You. I loved it, and I think you will too. 

Chasten James Glezman was born on June 23, 1989. He shares his birthday with legendary bisexual sexologist Alfred Kinsey upon whose research the modern gay rights movement was built, and math-computer genius and gay martyr Alan Turing. During Pete Buttigieg’s campaign for the Democratic presidential nomination, Pete’s husband Chasten quickly became the campaign’s “not so secret weapon.” I followed Chasten on social media throughout Pete’s campaign and saw a few interviews with him especially those after his brother attacked him on Fox News. I found him charming, sweet, and funny, and I wanted to know more about this middle school drama teacher. That’s why I wanted to read his recently released autobiography, I Have Something to Tell You.

His story verifies much of what I thought I knew about Chasten. From his public appearances, social media, and broadcast interviews, he appears to be intelligent and funny, given to emotion, and passionate about kids especially LGBTQ+ kids, and his love for Pete. I think you too will find the book reinforces these impressions. I listened to it as an audio book; reading a physical book is often difficult because they tend to exacerbate my headaches, and it becomes difficult to focus my eyes to the words on page. Chasten narrated his biography. I think listening to him gave the book a richer meaning. You may remember I originally came to Vermont from Alabama for a position as an oral historian. Oral histories allow you to hear the person’s emotions, and that is precisely what you get with the audio version of I Have Something to Tell You.

Throughout the campaign, Chasten and Pete were criticized by groups like “Queers Against Pete” who trolled Pete and Chasten around the country from one campaign event to another always trying to shout them down. They gave various excuses for not liking Pete, but #1 among them was that the couple was not “gay enough.” What a crock of shit! They are two men married to each other. How much gayer can you get? Just as sexuality is on a spectrum so are gay men. Chasten and Pete are identified with a gay sophistication often derided by some in our community; however, Chasten’s roots are surprisingly middle America. He was reared in Chums Corner, Michigan (population 946), “a hop, skip, and a jump from rural farmland.” Both his parents had to work hard to make ends meet. He recalls simple meals like meatloaf, mashed potatoes, mac and cheese, canned tomato soup, peaches, and pears—and his mom Sherri, “in a bathrobe, her hair still wet from the shower getting her purse and writing us a check for school lunches in the mornings saying that it might not be enough.”

Growing up in rural Alabama, there are a lot of things I felt a connection to with Chasten’s story. He writes, “When fair time came around, I always felt so nervous and conspicuous. As you might suspect, the typical 4Her is a tough guy or wants to be. They present as very masculine, and I never did.” My parents forced me to play sports, but I was not the typical athlete. I was never very masculine, and like so many young sensitive boys who grew up as Chasten and I did, other boys noticed and pounced.

Also, like Chasten, I don’t remember “seeing” any gay people in person growing up. Just as Chasten relates in his book, I remember vividly the words fag, faggot, and sissy, and all the many other descriptors for boys who were different, feminine, and soft. I remember being pushed around in the halls and treated differently from other guys. Chasten says in the book, “The classic move was to push me into a locker while calling me a “freak,” but the comments about my sexuality were much more hurtful than this general term. Something in those insults told me other kids knew more about me than I did myself, and I didn’t like it….” I remember feeling the same way.

The combination of terror in the hallways and the locker room, the dogma of Catholicism (for me it was the Church of Christ), our Republican communities (Alabama began to be more Republican as I got older), the country, and the world in general were all things with which many of us can identify. The constant message of what we were expected to be, but knowing we were different led to deep emotional scarring of our sense of self that negatively impacted our lives in multiple ways.  Much of the first chapters can be summed up in this passage: “Fighting the waves of exclusion, I often felt like an undertow was pulling me away from everyone and everything.”

Chasten also struggled with student debt something he and Pete talked about on the campaign trail. I understood completely. After nine years of graduate school, I racked up massive student debt and couldn’t pay them when I got a job as a teacher which paid barely minimum wage. Chasten has also struggled with medical debt, something I too know very well as I have searched for treatments for my migraines. Before the Affordable Care Act, most insurance wouldn’t cover migraine medicine because it was a preexisting condition. And let me tell you, migraine medicines are expensive.

As painful as these struggles are to read and identify with, there were many funny moments. Chasten can throw shade. From his Tales of a Starbucks Barista: “Caramel Frappuccino perfectionists are a whole breed of human being [but they were] preferable to the Foam People….” There were fewer laughs regarding his doubts and fears from all the dead-end dates; like many of us, he was initially surprised to discover most men he met through apps had no interest in a committed relationship and family. We all know what most guys on apps really want even if they start out by saying they are looking for more.

The story of meeting Pete and their relationship was so sweet. You got a sense of just how laid-back Pete really is, but also of just how much they love each other. The two are quite different, but they seem a perfect match. They both had struggled with coming to terms with their sexuality, something many of us have experienced.

One of the remarkable things about the book is the campaign. You get to read about Chasten’s experiences trying to help LGBTQ+ kids accept themselves something still difficult for many in 2020. The Internet is full of pictures of young kids on the campaign trail locking eyes with Pete (who leaned over or knelt to their eye level as Chasten taught him to do). During the campaign, Chasten visited over 100 LGBTQ+ centers across America. Some of the campaign stories are extremely emotional; I was teary by the end of the book.

While I don’t see Chasten getting into politics for himself as he seems to prefer teaching, I do hope one day we see Pete serving this country in a greater capacity perhaps even as president. If you have any interest in Chasten or Pete Buttigieg, I urge you to get this book. It is beautifully written with an appealing and witty approach that comes across easily. It’s the story of a life that wasn’t always charmed or humorous, but instead a life with which I think many of us can identify. It’s just a damn good book, and I think you’ll enjoy it.