xo Orpheus

Fifty leading writers retell myths from around the world in this dazzling follow-up to the bestselling My Mother She Killed Me, My Father He Ate Me.

Icarus flies once more. Aztec jaguar gods again stalk the earth. An American soldier designs a new kind of Trojan horse-his cremains in a bullet. Here, in beguiling guise, are your favorite mythological figures alongside characters from Indian, Punjabi, Inuit, and other traditions.

• Aimee Bender retells the myth of the Titans.
• Elizabeth McCracken retells the myth of Lamia, the child-eating mistress of Zeus.
• Madeline Miller retells the myth of Galatea.
• Kevin Wilson retells the myth of Phaeton, from Ovid's Metamorphoses.
• Emma Straub and Peter Straub retell the myth of Persephone.
• Heidi Julavits retells the myth of Orpheus and Euridice.
• Ron Currie, Jr. retells the myth of Dedalus.
• Maile Meloy retells the myth of Demeter.
• Zachary Mason retells the myth of Narcissus.
• Joy Williams retells the myth of Argos, Odysseus' dog.

If "xo" signals a goodbye, then xo Orpheus is a goodbye to an old way of mythmaking. Featuring talkative goats, a cat lady, a bird woman, a beer-drinking ogre, a squid who falls in love with the sun, and a girl who gives birth to cubs, here are extravagantly imagined, bracingly contemporary stories, heralding a new beginning for one of the world's oldest literary traditions.