Around these parts, we are huge fans of both Gregory Maguire and Madeline Miller (check out Kayleigh's interview with her). So when this transcript landed in our inbox, well, let's just say we were excited. In case you're joining us late, Gregory Maguire is the author of the Wicked series (the latest, and final entry is Out of Oz) and Madeline's magnificent novel The Song of Achilles hits shelves next year. The Song of Achilles is a lyrical, moving retelling of Homer's The Iliad and happens to be one of the most satisfying love stories to grace our desks in ages. Take it away, Gregory!
1. Ms. Miller, you write with the confidence of the zealously inspired, taking as your material one of the great foundation texts of world literature. In three millennia or so, The Iliad has garnered somewhat wider attention than The Wizard of Oz, with which I have played, so I have to ask in admiration and in real curiosity: where do you get the noive? I would almost be tempted to bandy about the word “hubris,” just to prove some point about not having lost my notes from tenth grade World Civ, but really, you handle the material so alertly, so respectfully, that hubris doesn’t enter into it. But nerve does. How did you come to dare to take on such a daunting task, and for your first book? And without training wheels?
A little knowledge is a dangerous thing, and in my case it was just dangerous enough to get me started writing. If I had stopped to ponder, I think I might have been too intimidated. But I had a few things working for me, which included the fact that Patroclus is such an underdog. Giving him voice felt a little like standing up for him, like some kind of Lorax of ancient Greek mythology. I had been intensely frustrated by a number of articles I had read that kept side-stepping the love between him and Achilles, which to me felt so obviously at the story’s heart. There was even one article—I’ve repressed who wrote it—that kept commenting that Achilles’ grief and anger at Patroclus’ death was out of character, and they couldn’t understand why he was so upset. So partially I was propelled by a desire to set the record straight, as I saw it.
The other thing that helped me, I think, was the fact that I never imagined the book as re-writing Homer. Instead, I made the Iliad a fixed point on the horizon and wrote towards it. I knew what Achilles and Patroclus became; I wanted to describe how they got there, and what went on between them in the scenes that Homer doesn’t show. I will say that at some point a friend of mine—let’s be honest, an ex-boyfriend—referred to the story as “Homeric fan fiction.” That was fairly dampening. But I decided: so be it. If it’s fan fiction, it’s fan fiction. I’m still going to write it.
