Wake, Siren

September 9, 2019
MacLaughlin, whose debut book was the carpentry memoir Hammerhead, heads in a vastly different direction with this collection of myths recast for the #MeToo era. In more than 30 short stories, nymphs and human women are allowed to tell their own stories, many of which depict gods and heroes as more dangerous than the lascivious and mischievous rogues they’ve often been portrayed as. These settings are largely unmoored from traditional chronology, borrowing freely from both classical tropes and contemporary popular culture, and some—such as one where incestuous Myrrha confesses everything to her therapist, or another in which the cyclops Polyphemus is Galatea’s cyberstalker—are inventive in form. There is nevertheless a certain sameness to many of the stories, perhaps unavoidable in such a project, but MacLaughlin largely succeeds in varying the recurrent themes of sexual violence and women’s subsequent rage and inevitable transformations, largely imposed by gods to ensure women’s silence. The emotional heart of the collection arrives when the horrific story of Proche and Philomela is immediately followed by Baucis’s sensually and emotionally satisfying tale of a long, love-filled marriage. In the latter story, the narrator states that “Not all stories are sad,” a much-needed reminder at this point in the collection. MacLaughlin skillfully elevates what could have been merely a writerly exercise, instead composing a chorus of women’s justifiable rage echoing down through the millennia.

November 1, 2019

In this modern feminist retelling of Ovid's Metamorphoses, itself a Latin retelling of ancient Greek myths, MacLaughlin (Hammer Head: The Making of a Carpenter) relies on Allen Mandelbaum's 1993 English translation for source material. If any canonical tales cry out to be told from a woman's perspective, it is certainly these myths, many of which revolve around rape or attempted rape. Several seem to be set in modern times, with references to the minutiae of everyday life--bus stops, 7-11, cell phones, movies, yoga classes--yet the gods of Mt. Olympus are still themselves, in all their flawed glory. These flashes of modernity can be jarring, momentarily taking the reader out of the story, but the choice makes sense, as the myths are meant to represent eternal truths. We are reminded that human nature doesn't change and that we tell the same stories over and over again in different settings with updated technologies, from the oral tradition to email exchanges. That these tales are still part of our cultural imagination speaks to their timelessness and enduring power. VERDICT Though some of the stories feel overly experimental and some retellings work better than others, this reenvisioning of Ovid's immortal work offers passages of unforgettable beauty and much strength in the voices of women trying to become themselves.--Lauren Gilbert, Sachem P.L., Holbrook, NY

Copyright 2019 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

Starred review from August 15, 2019
Provocative reinterpretations of some very old stories. MacLaughlin was a classics major before she began a career working with wood, so anyone who read her memoir, Hammer Head: The Making of a Carpenter (2015), may remember the occasional quotation from Ovid. In this collection of stories, she finds her main subjects in the Roman poet's Metamorphoses. MacLaughlin has set herself a considerable challenge. Ovid was writing about 2,000 years ago, and people have been translating and riffing on his poems--which were, themselves, based on well-known myths--ever since. Of course, the fact that artists continue to find inspiration in Daedalus and Icarus and Hercules and the Fall of Troy is testament to their power and mutability, but this means that MacLaughlin is inviting comparison to everyone from Homer to Walt Disney Studios. One way she sets herself apart is by focusing on female characters, many of them less well known to a contemporary audience. This choice creates its own challenge, though, in that so many of these stories are about rape. MacLaughlin succeeds in making these stories fresh and distinct by allowing her protagonists to speak in their own voices. This creates stylistic variety across stories, but it also makes a powerful point. In so many of these tales, a human woman or wood nymph or other female who attracts the attention of a lustful god or an angry goddess is turned into an inanimate object or dumb beast. She literally loses her voice. Indeed, even when these heroines can speak, the patriarchal culture in which they live robs their words of meaning. Io says "No" to Jove, but she finds that the language she knows no longer has any power. The sounds she makes are no more meaningful than the lowing of the white cow she will become. Some of these stories have distinctly modern touches--Galatea faints at a 7-Eleven because she's been on a fasting cleanse--but these moments only reinforce a sense of timelessness. There have always been men who will not hear when women speak. Vital, vivid, and angry.

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Starred review from October 1, 2019
The act of art is metamorphosis, pronounces one woman in this eclectic collection, in which MacLaughlin daringly fashions a new artistic work that transforms female characters from Ovid's Metamorphoses into the heroes (or anti-heroes) of their own stories. While they take a feminist slant, similar to that in Madeline Miller's Circe (2018), the 34 accounts in this multivoiced mosaic, which range from a couple of pages to much longer, creatively diverge in approach and style. Some stories dazzle with their poetic eloquence, while others, written in slangy contemporary English, offer short, punchy lines and timeless themes. Baucis, an elderly woman, tells a moving tale of enduring love and the gods' power and gratitude, while a therapy-session dialogue ideally suits Myrrha's disturbing story of her son's conception. Medusa reveals the true tragedy of her plight, and in Sibyl, MacLaughlin converts the traditional tale into a paean to older women's wisdom. Many women in Ovid's poem suffer unwanted male attention or sexual violence and find themselves silenced after being changed into animals, trees, or something else, but here they express their sorrow, fear, and rage. The free mingling of ancient characters with elements of workaday modern life won't please everyone, but open-minded readers should applaud the virtuosity and find much worth discovering in these memorable reinterpretations.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2019, American Library Association.)