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pearl35's review
5.0
I always loved mythology, but as a teenager, reached the annoying stage of realization that there were kernels of reality to even the most outlandish stores, and that the way they were told was to cement a version of culture and behavior desired by the teller--was the story of Apollo and the Pythia about the overcoming of one older religion with that of an invader? Is the Iliad about resentment of ship tolls? (I was a real pill about that last one, especially after I saw Troy's location in person). I enjoy fun books like Jordana Max Brodsky's on deities in conflict, and in the modern world. Sometimes, a myth begins to nag at me--as a woman in a very male field (military history), Athena/Minerva has been everywhere, from the name of our online discussion list, the logo on the prizes we earn, applied to grants where social science is supposed to enhance and smooth the hard edges of statistics and missiles. But in the standard telling, Athena punishes one of her devotees, Medusa, and her sisters, for the crime of being angry that Poseidon raped her in Athena's temple, counter to the lesson that the recipients of a god's attention should be flattered, and have their weird demi-god babies under whatever conditions the myth requires. Medusa refuses, and becomes a hideous outcast, with her sisters as collateral damage. When she appears again, it is in the part of an accessory to Perseus' story, her head a convenient weapon to use her ugliness to kill another mythological monster, the Kraken and save a "good" princess for her destiny with Perseus. Lesson: shut up or be used as the example of how empowerment and rage make women grotesque outcasts.
In her verse, Kendra Preston Leonard fully grasped what lay underneath and tilted the kaleidoscope to see Medusa and her family, and that "not like the other girls" Athena in a strikingly modern story of abuse of power, sexual violence and accountability, power structures, and why women turn on other women when men do shitty things. The poetry is stark and propulsive, studded with darkly hilarious vignettes, like Medusa's interview with what is surely Cosmo magazine, sister Stheno's medical world with IV lines twisted like snakes, and the sinuous gorgeousness of resistance that terrifies and exposes the brittleness of those unwilling to break themselves loose from an exploitative patriarchy.
In her verse, Kendra Preston Leonard fully grasped what lay underneath and tilted the kaleidoscope to see Medusa and her family, and that "not like the other girls" Athena in a strikingly modern story of abuse of power, sexual violence and accountability, power structures, and why women turn on other women when men do shitty things. The poetry is stark and propulsive, studded with darkly hilarious vignettes, like Medusa's interview with what is surely Cosmo magazine, sister Stheno's medical world with IV lines twisted like snakes, and the sinuous gorgeousness of resistance that terrifies and exposes the brittleness of those unwilling to break themselves loose from an exploitative patriarchy.
kleonard's review
5.0
I'm the author! Here's a little more about the book: Protectress places the mythical gorgons in the modern world, where Athena, pumped up by all of the people who blame women for being raped, who slut-shame women who wear and do what they want, and who think that men are always right, is trying to drive Medusa to suicide. Medusa, you ask. Isn’t she dead? She and her sisters managed to fool Perseus, but now Medusa’s happy life as a college professor is upended by Athena’s new negative energy, and the gorgons host a party of goddesses, nymphs, and others from myth to try to figure out how to bring Athena around to a more compassionate stance. Protectress is about rape culture, about the concept of the “heroic,” about solidarity, and about collaboration. It’s also got sea monsters, a dragon, several wars, lots of good dogs, and magic.