MADELINE MILLER

Madeline Miller is the author of the highly lauded Song of Achilles. The book, her debut, was originally published in 2011, and within a year was receiving mostly high praise across the literary world, including being awarded the Orange Prize for Fiction in 2012 ("The Author"). It had even been shortlisted for the Stonewall Book Award in 2013—the “first and most enduring award for LGBTQ+ books”—because of its reinterpretative vision of the mythic Greek hero, Achilles, and his companion, Patroclus, as lovers (“Stonewall”). This all despite Miller not being queer herself, or at least openly queer.

The Song of Achilles then, despite being a love story between two men, was written by a straight woman, something she has received criticism for primarily from queer readers. Some note that it was “disappointing that Achilles and Patroclus seem to have no inward thought of their sexuality,” especially given the novel is structured as a bildungsroman, and its format has been changed from the descriptive verse used in the original epic to a first-person narration that has the capacity to illustrate all that’s happening in Patroclus’ inner monologue (Watson). That criticism, coupled with questionably explicit scenes of intimate moments between the two characters, has called on whether or not it was Miller’s place as a straight woman to depict a queer love story.

However, what does it mean when said author outright states to have not set out on writing a “deliberately “gay” love story” (“Q & A”). This is exactly the case with Miller, where she affirms that conversation about the exact nature of Achilles and Patroclus’ relationship has been debated since the time of Homer himself. The theory and arguments that the two were romantically and/or sexually entwined is by no means a novel phenomenon. In this case then, Miller seems to be making homage to that old-as-origin notion more than aiming to write a queer narrative. Her ten years spent writing the novel, coupled with her long experience in Latin and Greek and love for “classical” work, seems to be a significant part of the inspiration for The Song of Achilles.

No doubt has the novel become a hugely important text for queer literature, and Miller’s adoration and intimate knowledge of the original epics is well felt through her storytelling. Perhaps then this means a queer audience gets to sit with the dissonance of having such an applauded—if flawed—love story between two men as written by a straight woman. Or not. That choice falls on them.