Atalanta: The dazzling story of the only female Argonaut

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Choosing to have Atalanta grow up among Artemis and the nymphs (as opposed to human huntsmen as we see in other versions of her mythology) gave me a unique opportunity to create a heroine who gets to grow up outside the bounds of normal society.

Across the water, set into the sloping mountainside, was a wide cave with large rocks dotted about in front of the entrance.Secretly, mutual respect develops into an illicit relationship that becomes the direst peril Atalanta encounters on the quest for the Golden Fleece. This really irritated me, but it also suggested to me that there was disagreement in the ancient world as to whether or not she participated in the quest, and in fact there are plenty of mentions of her in other lists of the Argonauts. As the nymphs had told me, it was under the protection of Artemis that I had the chance to grow free and joyous.

Four men who meet as college roommates move to New York and spend the next three decades gaining renown in their professions—as an architect, painter, actor and lawyer—and struggling with demons in their intertwined personal lives. Daughter of the King of Arcadia, the baby Atalanta is left to die on a mountain because her father had hoped for a son. Girls like Anne Shirley (of Anne of Green Gables) who aren’t defined by their relationships to boys or men, who have ambition and spirit and learn resilience and perseverance. In between, she spent thirteen years as an English teacher, sharing a love of literature and creative writing with her students. The detail and description is lush: you can hear the rustle of the green leaves and taste the salty spray of the sea as the Argo rides forth on its quest.Another whirlwind retelling of mythic proportions… In a world where men continually try to contain her, Atalanta must carve out her own place and leave her legendary mark on the world. Michaelides takes a literary turn in his latest novel, employing an unreliable narrator, the structure of classical drama, and a self-conscious eye to dismantling the locked-room mystery. From the cave where I slept beside the nymphs, I would watch the passage of the moon across the sky, chart its progress from slender crescent to shining orb.

But there are always gaps in their lives; for example Elektra herself enters these tragedies as a fully-grown woman already set on her dangerous and destructive course of action. Artemis shunned the golden halls of Mount Olympus, the grand cloud-cloaked palace where the other immortals lived. I don’t remember exactly the moment when I first encountered Atalanta in mythology – her stories are quite disparate and episodic, and I didn’t have a strong sense of her as a character particularly.The detail and description is lush : you can hear the rustle of the green leaves and taste the salty spray of the sea as the Argo rides forth on its quest.