If I had stopped to ponder, I think I might have been too intimidated. Madeline Miller: A little knowledge is a dangerous thing, and in my case it was just dangerous enough to get me started. In three millennia, The Iliad has garnered somewhat wider attention than The Wizard of Oz, with which I have played, so I have to ask: where do you get the noive? How did you come to dare to take on such a daunting task, and for your first book?

Miller, you write with the confidence of the zealously inspired, taking as your material one of the great foundation texts of world literature. Gregory Maguire is the best-selling author of Confessions of an Ugly Stepsister, Lost, Mirror Mirror, the Wicked Years, a series that includes Wicked, Son of a Witch, A Lion Among Men, and most recently, Out of Oz. Gregory Maguire Interviews Madeline Miller The Song of Achilles infuses the essence of Homer with modern storytelling in a combination that is utterly absorbing and gratifying-I can’t wait to see what Miller tackles next. In this new twist on the Trojan War story, Patroclus and Achilles are the quintessential mismatched pair-a mortal underdog exiled in shame and a glorious demigod revered by all-but what would a novel of ancient Greece be without star-crossed love? Miller includes other good tragic bits-foreknowledge of death, ruthless choices that pit pride and reputation against the lives of innocents, the folly of men and gods-and through her beautiful writing my spine chilled in the presence of Achilles’ mother, the sea goddess Thetis, and I became a bystander in the battlefield of Troy awash with blood, exaltation, and despair. Amazon Best Books of the Month, March 2012: Betrayal, ardor, war, and prophecies-in The Song of Achilles, author Madeline Miller brings together everything I love about The Iliad without the labor of epic poetry.

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