House of Names (Toibin) - Book Reviews

Book Reviews
Written with the ‘knowledge that the time of the gods has passed, Colm Toibin’s take on the classic myth of Agamemnon and Clytemnestra in House of Names evokes a husband’s vanity and a wife’s rage, casting the fragility of our closest bonds in fresh light.
Vogue


Toibíin refreshes a classic…. The result is a dramatic, intimate chronicle of a family implosion set in unsettling times as gods withdraw from human affairs. Far from the Brooklyn or Ireland of his recent bestsellers, Toibin explores universal themes of failure, loss, loneliness, and repression.
Publishers Weekly


(Starred review.) Irish master Toibin's new novel is a taut retelling of a foundational Western story.…This extraordinary book reads like a pristine translation rather than a retelling, conveying both confounded strangeness and timeless truths about love's sometimes terrible and always exhilarating energies. —John G. Matthews, Washington State Univ. Libs., Pullman
Library Journal


(Starred review.) Brilliant...Tóibín's accomplishment here is to render myth plausible while at the same time preserving its high drama... gripping... The selfish side of human nature is... made tangible and graphic in Toibin's lush prose.
Booklist


Toibin, an enthusiast of classic storytelling…takes a crack at Greek mythology.… Toibin reframes this version in "a time when the gods are fading," the better to lay the blame for our human failures plainly on ourselves.… [A]lternately fiery and plodding, but Toibin plainly grasps the reasons for its timelessness.
Kirkus Reviews