Alcestis

De: Katharine Beutner

Narrado por: Samara Naeymi

WINNER OF THE EDMUND WHITE DEBUT FICTION AWARD

FINALIST FOR THE LAMBDA LITERARY ASSOCIATION'S LESBIAN DEBUT FICTION AWARD

A fiercely feminist retelling of a little-known Greek myth: the ultimate story of sacrifice and forbidden desire

In Greek myth, Alcestis is known as the ideal wife; she loved her husband so much that she died and went to the underworld in his place. But who was Alcestis before she was married? Other than her love for Admetus, what circumstances led her to make this ultimate sacrifice? And what happened to her in the three days she spent in the underworld?

Katharine Beutner’s lush, emotionally devastating debut explores the magical reality of ancient Greece, where gods attend weddings and the underworld is just a river away. As Alcestis goes from sheltered princess to wise savior, she redefines love and discovers her own power—a poignant heroine’s journey that resonates more than ever today. Giving an achingly beautiful voice to the most misunderstood wives of Greek mythology, Alcestis reveals the underworld as you’ve never seen it before.

“Beutner helps us re-see the familiar … Alcestis is nobody’s celebratory gayed-up Greek myth (for that, try Ovid). Instead, Beutner’s retelling is resolutely queer: strange, beautiful, ambivalent, sexually fluid, full of human complexity and godly simplicity.”—Andrea Lawlor, Lambda Literary

©2010 Katharine Beutner (P)2024 Recorded Books

Great story, but the “voice” of Admetus…?

As a listener, all I need/expect to hear is a slight tone change to distinguish between characters, whether they be male or female.

The narrator for all female characters has a pleasant voice.
But, when it comes to the voice of Admetus, the pitch is comically off and it’s very distracting.

I don’t expect a professional female narrator to sound like a man, but the “male” voice shouldn’t sound like a mysterious “creature”, either. It absolutely destroys any dramatic/ romantic tension the author created.

I feel the same way when a male narrator chooses a drastically higher pitch that makes the female character sound strange & comical.

I feel for the poor author who hears their work distorted in these easily avoidable ways.

The intrusion of lesbian sex

It was interesting enough but with growing sense of unpleasantness in chapter 12. In chapter 13, a coerced lesbian sex scene provided an immediate ewww and ick factor. Skipping to 14, there is mulling over the sex. A growing sense of male bashing left me no option but to delete the book from my library. Having paid for this rather than using a credit, I am unable to seek a refund. A very sour taste remains.