Daughters of Olympus

May 13, 2024
Lynn (the Grecian Women series) frames this vibrant retelling of the myth of Demeter and Persephone as “the story of a mother’s loss.” After Demeter is raped by her brother Zeus, she gives birth to twins Core and Iacchus. While Iacchus emulates his father’s violence, Core becomes the center of her mother’s world. Zeus again devastates Demeter by killing her mortal lover, Iaison, with a lightning bolt, prompting Demeter to take Core from Olympus to her home on Earth. There, Demeter allows Core to roam freely, leading to her abduction by the love-starved Hades, who’d misinterpreted Core’s friendliness to him during a brief encounter centuries earlier. Lynn impresses with her ability to make her divine characters come across both as impossibly powerful and deeply vulnerable, portraying Demeter’s anguish at the loss of Core, who renames herself Persephone in the underworld, and Core’s despair over being separated from the open air and greenery she’d reveled in. This stands out from the pack of feminist takes on Greek mythology.