In 'The Palace of Eros,' Caro De Robertis shines a light on freedom and desire.
On this episode of Fully Booked, Caro De Robertis discusses The Palace of Eros (Atria, Aug. 13), a retelling of the Greek myth of Psyche and Eros from the author of 2019 Kirkus Prize finalist, Cantoras. Kirkus calls their sexy, sumptuous new novel “a vulnerable, sensual, and joyous journey about living and loving in one’s truth.”
De Robertis is an award-winning writer and literary translator whose honors include two Stonewall Book Awards and a National Endowment for the Arts fellowship. They are the author of six novels, including The Gods of Tango and The President and the Frog, and the editor Radical Hope: Letters of Love and Dissent in Dangerous Times. Their work has been translated into 18 languages. They teach at San Francisco State University and live in Oakland, California, with their two children.
Here’s a bit more from our review of The Palace of Eros: “Psyche, the youngest of three daughters, is wild, loud, and uninterested in taking a suitor. As tales of her beauty spread through the kingdom, crowds of leering men begin to flock to her home to see if the rumors are true: Could Psyche really be more beautiful and interesting than Aphrodite, the goddess of love and beauty? Furious and jealous, Aphrodite asks her daughter Eros, who reigns over love and desire, to destroy Psyche.…Instead, Psyche is carried to a palace beyond her wildest dreams. Created by Eros, who has fallen for this human girl, the beautiful and bountiful home is shrouded in secrecy from gods, goddesses, and humans alike. Within the palace, they can be together—as husband and wife (or something in between)—just so long as they are always cloaked in total darkness. As Psyche realizes all the ways her dream home still falls short, she makes a decision that changes the trajectory of their lives—and the mythical world—forever.…De Robertis’ prose is as sharp and beautiful as ever. Their meditations on gender, desire, and freedom soar off the page. The author’s retelling provides a space to dream of a world where those ‘born perfect yet outside the rules’ of their time may find ways to step out of the shadows and into the light.”
De Robertis shares the story of the Greek myth of Psyche and Eros, how they first encountered it, and why they’ve been obsessed ever since. We enumerate the many questions the myth raises—questions of intimacy and belonging, what happens when you defy societal norms, whether you can truly know another person, and how freedom of expression looks under oppression. They point out that The Palace of Eros is their first novel that’s not set in their countries of origin, exploring actual histories; nevertheless, it shares a few key themes with the rest of their work. They read aloud from the first page of the book, and we discuss how they thought about time in this retelling. We acknowledge the time it takes to identify and claim one’s desires; how Romans call Eros Cupid in their myth; whether this felt like a risky book for them to write; advice to queer writers working on sex scenes, and much more.
Then editors Laura Simeon, Mahnaz Dar, and Laurie Muchnick share their top picks in books for the week.
EDITORS’ PICKS:
Our Wicked Histories by Amy Goldsmith (Delacorte)
The Dictionary Story by Oliver Jeffers & Sam Winston (Candlewick)
Mina’s Matchbox by Yoko Ogawa, trans. by Stephen Snyder (Pantheon)
THANKS TO OUR SPONSORS:
Zodiac Pets by Eric Giroux
Fun Things To See and Do on Uranus by Geoffrey Simmons, M.D.
Survival in the Land of Beasts by Ron Rasband
Fully Booked is produced by Cabel Adkins Audio and Megan Labrise.
