Merry Hell

Author: Sara Larsen

Publisher: Atelos (2016)

In Merry Hell, Helen of Troy exposes the "misogynist spell" of the traditional (patriarchal) narrative that condemns her for the horrors of the Trojan War and insists "let me tell you all the truth of what has happened to me." As it happened, Helen is neither abducted by nor runs off in love with Paris, but rejects Empire and leaves Sparta of her own volition. Helen's story, a heroine's journey, is interwoven with circumstances surrounding the Pétroleuse, or women incendiaries, of the 1871 Paris Commune as well as those of Occupy Oakland. As Ezra Pound states, "All eras are contemporaneous in the mind."