Costanza Casati

Clytemnestra retells the house of Atreus from the woman who kills Agamemnon, starting long before Troy with her first husband and infant killed by the man she is then forced to marry.

Casati grew up in Italy, studied ancient Greek, and the Spartan childhood sections are drawn from what is actually known about the agoge rather than invented for atmosphere.

The novel is unusual in the current wave of mythological retellings for refusing to make its protagonist sympathetic in a modern way. She is monstrous, and the book explains rather than excuses it.