Autobiography of Red

Vintage Contemporaries Series

By: Anne Carson

Narrated by: Paul Boehmer

The award-winning poet Anne Carson reinvents a genre in Autobiography of Red, a stunning work that is both a novel and a poem, both an unconventional recreation of an ancient Greek myth and a wholly original coming-of-age story set in the present.

Geryon, a young boy who is also a winged red monster, reveals the volcanic terrain of his fragile, tormented soul in an autobiography he begins at the age of five. As he grows older, Geryon escapes his abusive brother and affectionate but ineffectual mother, finding solace behind the lens of his camera and in the arms of a young man named Herakles, a cavalier drifter who leaves him at the peak of infatuation. When Herakles reappears years later, Geryon confronts again the pain of his desire and embarks on a journey that will unleash his creative imagination to its fullest extent.

By turns whimsical and haunting, erudite and accessible, richly layered and deceptively simple, Autobiography of Red is a profoundly moving portrait of an artist coming to terms with the fantastic accident of who he is.

©1998 Anne Carson (P)2016 Tantor

good

excellent audio adaptation of an unconventional text. worth the while. if you're into that sort of thing

Wow. Those that write of poetry are really stretching it.

This was nothing I expected from reading reviews. The reviews remind me of the emperors new clothes. The story while beautifully written for the most part was disconnected and splintered. There was a message but I was able to discern that very early on then it was a slog.

Perfect Poetry

This is how poetry is meant to be given! Incredible strange story of a red boy.

Beautiful writing and narration

The story so charged with love, and its language subtle and incredibly beautiful. Even if its message in its entirety remains a bit cryptic to me upon finishing it, I am still in awe of the stills Anne Carson created through an intense command of language. Totally recommend this one.

A masterpiece

What a magnificent artistic vision. I felt truly transported by the descriptions, like I was there myself zoomed into every detail.