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  Acknowledgments

  So many people were supportive of this book’s journey that I cannot possibly list them all. I must settle instead for a heartfelt Thank You: to my friends, family, students, readers, and all those who engage passionately with these ancient stories and stop to tell me about it.

  Thanks to Dan Burfoot for his time and keen literary insight on an early draft. Huge thanks to Jonah Ramu Cohen for always being enthusiastic about my work, willing to read multiple drafts and to talk storytelling, myths, and feminism.

  I continue to be grateful to and inspired by my classics mentors, most especially David Rich, Joseph Pucci, and Michael C. J. Putnam. I am grateful as well to the gracious David Elmer, who let me pick his brain on a few key matters. They all bear no responsibility for my distortions.

  Many thanks to Margo Rabb, Adam Rosenblatt, and Amanda Levinson for cheering me on through the writing process, and likewise to Sarah Yardney and Michelle Wofsey Rowe. Much love to my brother, Tull, and his wife, Beverly, for their continued support.

  Deepest gratitude to Gatewood West for insight, crucial wisdom, and great warmth that was with me throughout this journey.

  I offer eternal devotions to my amazing editor, Lee Boudreaux, for brilliant and patient feedback, for all her faith in my work, and for being generally sublime. Thank you as well to the fabulous team: Pamela Brown, Carina Guiterman, Gregg Kulick, Karen Landry, Carrie Neill, Craig Young, and everyone else at Little, Brown. Very special thanks also to the wonderful Judy Clain and Reagan Arthur for their enthusiasm and support.

  I am so grateful as well to the divine Alexandra Pringle, and to the whole Bloomsbury UK family: Ros Ellis, Madeleine Feeny, David Mann, Angelique Tran Van Sang, Amanda Shipp, Rachel Wilkie, and many more.

  And, as always, a million thank-yous to Julie Barer, who continues to be Best of All Agents, loving, brilliant, and a fierce advocate for my work, always willing to read another draft, and a great friend to boot. Big thanks to the whole team at The Book Group, especially Nicole Cunningham and Jenny Meyer. And of course to the terrific Caspian Dennis, and Sandy Violette as well.

  There are not enough words in the world to adequately express my adoration of and gratitude to Jonathan and Cathy Drake for their love, support, and supreme grandparenting. Thank you! Thanks also to Tina, BJ, and Julia.

  Love and hugest appreciation to my lovely stepfather, Gordon, and to my mother, Madeline, who introduced the classics to me, read to me every day of my childhood, and supported this book getting written in ways large and small, not least by being my first example of dux femina facti.

  Much love to the radiant and potent V. and F., whose magic transformed my life, and who were patient with me disappearing for hours at a time. Finally, unending thanks and love to Nathaniel, my sine quo non, who was there for every page.

  About the Author

  Madeline Miller was born in Boston and grew up in New York City and Philadelphia. She attended Brown University, where she earned her BA and MA in classics. For the last fifteen years she has been teaching and tutoring Latin, Greek, and Shakespeare. The Song of Achilles, her first novel, was awarded the 2012 Orange Prize for Fiction and was a New York Times bestseller. It has been translated into twenty-five languages. Miller’s essays have appeared in a number of publications, including The Guardian, the Wall Street Journal, Lapham’s Quarterly, and NPR.org. She currently lives near Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.

  Praise for

  The Song of Achilles

  “At once a scholar’s homage to The Iliad and a startlingly original work of art by an incredibly talented new novelist.…A book I could not put down.”

  —Ann Patchett, author of Commonwealth

  “Mary Renault lives again! A ravishingly vivid and convincing version of one of the most legendary love stories.”

  —Emma Donoghue, author of Room

  “I loved it.”

  —J.K. Rowling

  “Fast, true, and incredibly rewarding.…A remarkable achievement.”

  —USA Today

  “Wildly romantic and surprisingly suspenseful.”

  —Mary Pols, Time

  “Beautifully done.…In prose as clean and spare as the driving poetry of Homer, Miller captures the intensity and devotion of adolescent friendship and lets us believe in these long-dead boys…deepening and enriching a tale that has been told for three thousand years.”

  —Mary Doria Russell, Washington Post

  “Captivating.…It’s a hard book to put down, and any classicist will be enthralled by her characterization of the goddess Thetis, which carries the true savagery and chill of antiquity.”

  —Donna Tartt, The Times (UK)

  “Powerful, inventive, passionate, and beautifully written.”

  —Boston Globe

  “One of [the year’s] most exciting debuts.…Seductive, hugely entertaining.”

  —Vogue

  “Spellbinding.…A timeless love story.”

  —Liza Nelson, O, The Oprah Magazine

  “Miller’s prose is more poetic than almost any translation of Homer.…This is a deeply affecting version of the Achilles story: a fully three-dimensional man—a son, a father, a husband and lover—now exists where a superhero previously stood and fought.”

  —The Guardian (UK)

  “Brilliant.…Rewriting the Western world’s first and greatest war novel is an awesome task to undertake. That Miller did it with such grace, style, and suspense is astonishing.”

  —Dallas Morning News

  “One of the best novelistic adaptations of Homer in recent memory, and it offers a strikingly well-rounded and compassionate portrait of Achilles.…Miller injects a newfound sense of suspense into a story with an ending that has already been determined.”

  —Wall Street Journal

  “Miller somehow (and breathtakingly so) mixes high-action commercial plotting with writing of such beautiful delicacy you sometimes have to stop and stare.”

  —The Independent (UK)

  “Masterfully brings to life an imaginative yet informed vision of ancient Greece featuring divinely human gods and larger-than-life mortals. She breaks new ground retelling one of the world’s oldest stories about men in love and war and extraordinary women.”

  —Publishers Weekly (starred review), Pick of the Week

  “Extraordinary.…Beautifully descriptive and heart-achingly lyrical, this is a love story as sensitive and intuitive as any you will find.”

  —Daily Mail (UK)

  “A masterly vision of the drama, valor, and tragedy of the Trojan War. Readers who loved Mary Renault’s epic novels will be thrilled with Miller’s portrayal of ancient Greece. This reviewer can’t wait to see what she writes next.”

  —Library Journal (starred review)

  “This is a beautiful book.”

  —Zachary Mason, author of The Lost Books of the Odyssey

  “Reading this book recalled for me the breathless sense of the ancient-yet-present that I felt when I first fell in love with the classics.”

  —Catherine Conybeare, professor of classics, Bryn Mawr College

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