blairmahoney 's review for:

Bright Air Black by David Vann

4.0

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I wasn't aware of Vann before. He's American and apparently lives in New Zealand, yet teaches at Warwick University in the UK. This retelling of Medea suggests he's well worth further investigation. It stacks up pretty well against Christa Wolf's retelling without managing to be quite as much of a masterpiece as that one is. He begins on the Argo with Medea throwing bits of her dead brother overboard to prevent her father from catching up with them. The voyage back to Iolcus takes up over half of the novel with the second half seeing her wreak vengeance on Pelias before catching up with Euripides and telling the Corinth story towards the end. That part gets a little perfunctory, as if he can't really be bothered rehashing Euripides. The prose is interesting and this is very much a feminist Medea and a story that doesn't include any supernatural events like flying chariots. I liked it.