Author Description

Applying modern sensibility and language to an ancient classic, Colm Tóibín's House of Names breathes new life into those extraordinary characters of antiquity. A daughter sacrificed by her father to secure his victory in war. A mother enraged. A family torn apart. A house brought down to ruins by power, ambition, and the desire for vengeance. Here is story of Clytemnestra, a cunning woman grieved by her daughter's murder and her husband's selfishness, and driven by her own desire for power. Here is the story of Orestes, forced into a bewildering exile where survival is uncertain. And here is the story of Electra, who watches over these unfolding events with cold, calculating eyes, seeking her mother's downfall as Clytemnestra sought her father's. Out of their desolating loss, Electra and Orestes must find a way to right the wrongs of the past, but it will mean committing themselves to a terrible, barbarous act. Vivid in its telling, brutal in its imagery, House of Names gives a voice to those figures lost to time, reimagining the slow, bloody destruction of a family cursed for eternity.