Mestra: The Forgotten Greek Myth Madeline Miller Revives

Greek mythology is having a moment, but maybe that shouldn’t surprise us. These ancient stories give us a safe, dramatic sandbox for exploring our deepest anxieties. We don’t read them to escape reality. We read them because the ancient Greeks somehow mapped out the exact kind of chaos we are still trying to survive today. Family problems, obsession, betrayal, power struggles and spectacularly bad decisions. The names have changed. The problems really haven’t.

That makes Madeline Miller’s Mestra particularly interesting. It is her first new fiction since Circe, and I really enjoyed her short story Galatea. Mestra feels like a natural continuation of what Miller does so well: taking a woman who was once a footnote in somebody else’s myth and putting her at the center of the story.

Mestra has one seriously strange family situation. Her father, King Erysichthon, cuts down a sacred grove belonging to Demeter and is punished with insatiable hunger. He eats through his wealth and possessions until his daughter becomes one of the few things he has left to sell. In the ancient tradition, Mestra can change shape, allowing her to escape while her father repeatedly uses her to get more money. It is bizarre, brutal and completely Greek mythology.

But underneath the gods and shape-shifting is something Miller understands remarkably well. Her women aren’t waiting around for someone to save them. They find whatever advantage they have and use it to take back control of their own stories. That connects Mestra with Galatea and Circe.

Miller has said, “Each generation should be able to reinterpret the myths through its own prism.” That may be the key to Mestra. The gods are ancient, but the struggle isn’t. Throw impossible adversity at a human being and the human will still finds a way to push back. Sometimes the most powerful thing in the story isn’t a god. It’s the person who refuses to be broken.