Autobiography of Red (Vintage Contemporaries)

Autobiography of Red, a stunning work that is both a novel and a poem, both an unconventional re-creation of an ancient Greek myth and a wholly original coming-of-age story set in the present, has earned its award-winning poet, Anne Carson, widespread acclaim for reinventing a genre. At the heart of this profoundly moving portrait of an artist coming to terms with the fantastic accident of who he is lies the story of Geryon, a young boy who is also a winged red monster.

Beginning at the age of five, Geryon reveals the volcanic terrain of his fragile, tormented soul in an autobiography that follows him as he grows older, escaping his abusive brother and affectionate but ineffectual mother. Finding solace behind the lens of his camera and in the arms of a young man named Herakles, a cavalier drifter who ultimately leaves him at the peak of infatuation, Geryon's journey is one of both pain and creative awakening. When Herakles reappears years later, Geryon confronts the anguish of his desire once more, embarking on a journey that will unleash his artistic imagination to its fullest extent.

By turns whimsical and haunting, erudite and accessible, richly layered and deceptively simple, Autobiography of Red has been hailed as a New York Times Notable Book of the Year and a National Book Critics Circle Award Finalist. Acclaimed by Michael Ondaatje as the "most exciting poet writing in English today," Carson's work has been praised for its "profound love story . . . sensuous and funny, poignant, musical and tender" (The New York Times Book Review), as well as its ability to "expos[e] with passionate force the mythic underlying the explosive everyday" (The Village Voice).

Through the lens of Geryon's powerful, resonant narrative, Carson masterfully reinvents an ancient Greek myth, weaving a wholly original coming-of-age tale that is both unconventional and deeply moving. In doing so, she has crafted a work that is as whimsical and haunting as it is erudite and accessible, a richly layered and deceptively simple exploration of the fantastic accident of who we are.

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