In Wrath Goddess Sing, Maya Deane reimagines Achilles as a trans woman. It’s a beautiful, slyly funny, and blisteringly angry book. It’s such a fresh and different telling of the familiar Trojan War.
Achilles is living on an island where she and women like her are welcomed and loved. She is a member of the kallai. Her sisters worship Aphrodite, though Achilles, herself, does not believe in the gods and so takes no part in worship. Her lack of belief though doesn’t protect her from the gods. Athena sends Odysseus to find Achilles to fight in the war to reclaim the kidnapped Helen, and Athena reshapes Achilles body into a female body.
The Achilles of Wrath Goddess Sing has always been a woman, even when other people tried to make her a man, even when she had male body parts, and she is still a woman with trauma around her identity when she has an entirely female body. One of the things I’ve noticed in reading trans and nonbinary authors is that often their characters relationships with their bodies is expressed more purposefully. Achilles relationship with her body before and after transformation, and the way other people relate to her in her body feels important. Her narrative voice doesn’t change, but the way she interact with her body does, or more simply, Achilles core self does and does not change when Athena transforms her.
Maya Deane gives her characters so much life and texture making Wrath Goddess Sing wonderfully layered. I didn’t love the interstitials. I understand the information and context they were providing, but they kicked me out of the story every time with the exception of the last one.
When I read The Master and Margarita a few years ago, a friend said, in Stalin’s Soviet Union, living together in the grey of Purgatory is a happy ending. If you are familiar with Trojan War stories, you know what happens to Achilles. Deane does change details, and in the end, I think she gives Achilles an ending that she would call satisfying.
I received this as an advance reader copy from William Morrow & Co and Netgalley. My honest opinions are voluntarily given.