The Penelopiad

For the reader who wants something short, sharp, and a little furious.

Why Consider This One

The Penelopiad hands the Odyssey to the people the hero left behind. Penelope narrates from the underworld, and her twelve maids, hanged when Odysseus came home, break in as a chorus to ask why they had to die. Atwood turns a celebrated homecoming into an interrogation, and does it in under two hundred pages. If Circe and Achilles are immersive, this is a stiletto.

Consider it when you want the ideas of the current retelling wave in their most concentrated form. Atwood was doing this decades before it became a genre, and her wit and control show. It also makes a smart companion to the longer books here: read it after one of them and it sharpens everything you thought the myth was about.

What to Expect

A brisk, playful, and pointed short novel that switches between Penelope’s dry voice and the maids’ songs, ballads, and mock trials. Expect irony rather than romance, and a structure that rewards a reader who enjoys being provoked. You can finish it in an afternoon, and it will stay with you longer than its length suggests.