Modern Retellings

Miller's novel is an accessible point of entry for emotional engagement with the characters. It tells the story of Achilles and Patroclus from Patroclus's perspective, from childhood through the years at Troy, with warmth and psychological depth that render both figures fully human. Readers who come to the Iliad after this novel often find that Patroclus's death in Book 16 carries a different force. The novel is a modern reinterpretation: Miller gives priority to psychological interiority and romantic feeling in ways Homer does not. Homer's heroic code is harsher than the one the novel presents.

Miller's second novel follows the witch Circe — daughter of the sun god Helios, minor figure in the Odyssey — across millennia of Greek myth. Where Song of Achilles is about glory and loss, Circe is about power and transformation. It touches the Trojan War world obliquely but rewards readers who have already met its cast of characters. The best of Miller's work by many readers' estimation.

The Trojan War from the perspectives Homer marginalizes — the women, the Trojans, the figures who appear briefly and are then forgotten. Haynes gives voices to Penelope, Hecuba, Cassandra, and Briseis, filling in the human reality around Homer's male-centered narrative. An excellent complement to the Iliad rather than a substitute for it. Like Miller, Haynes draws on the full Epic Cycle and applies a distinctly contemporary critical lens to the ancient material.