A fresh and provocative take on one of mythology's most fascinating and notorious women, recasting Medea from the monster she is often known to be into a flawed, feminine being, a woman in love
It is 13th century B.C. and aboard the ship Argo, Medea, Jason and the Argonauts make their return journey across the Black Sea from Persia’s Colchis, in possession of the Golden Fleece.
David Vann, in brilliant poetic prose, gives us a nuanced and electric portrait of one of Greek mythology’s most fascinating and notorious figures, Medea; an ancient tale reimagined through the eyes of the woman often cast as sorceress and monster.
Atmospheric and spellbinding, Bright Air Black is an indispensable and provocative take on one of our earliest texts and the most intimate and corporal version of Medea’s story ever told.
About the Author
David Vann was born in Alaska and comes from a family of sinkers. His father sank a new cabin cruiser in Alaska, right in the marina, by forgetting to put in the drain plug when he launched. Vann's grandfather sank an old converted Navy cruiser on a lake in California. His uncle sank the same boat twice in Idaho. Vann himself sank in the Caribbean on his honeymoon, as chronicled in his best-selling memoir, A Mile Down: The True Story of a Disastrous Career at Sea. Every family has to be good at something, and Vann is hard at work continuing the tradition. Last year, he built a 52-foot aluminum trimaran for a nonstop solo circumnavigation for Esquire magazine and had to turn back because the boat was about to fold in half. He's also had run-ins with pirates in Mexico, which he wrote about for Outside magazine, and he's sailed by land from Florida to California for Men's Journal on a 'Blokart,' a tricycle with a sail (made in New Zealand, where Vann has residency). He also loves to sail the Mediterranean, and once lost a rudder off Morocco.
In Legend of a Suicide, though, Vann turns to fiction to write about the defining disaster of his life, the suicide of his father when Vann was 13. The book is the winner of the Grace Paley Prize and was named a Notable Book of 2008 by the New York Times, San Francisco Chronicle, Kansas City Star, and the Story Prize.
Vann has worked on documentaries in 2009 with the BBC, NOVA, and CNN, and he's been a National Endowment for the Arts Fellow and a Wallace Stegner Fellow, taught at Stanford and Cornell, where he received his degrees, and is currently a professor at the University of San Francisco.
Industry Reviews
`The story is a familiar one, but David Vann breathes new life into the tale, taking the reader deep into Medea's psyche. Atmospheric and poetic.' -- Nicki J. Markus
`Sensual and violent, often simultaneously, Vann's novel evokes the primal force of women's power.' * Booklist *
`Wonderfully evocative and enjoyable...A great addition to the oeuvre of Greek mythological retellings.' * Randomly Yours, Alex *
`Vann gives us a fresh slant on an early myth, an up-close and in-depth character study. From the outset, his drama unfolds in prose that is both atmospheric and electrifying...Medea's story is one of the bleakest of all the Greek tragedies. Vann sums it up succinctly: "Unnatural, all that is human." But the tale is also one of great power and intensity. Bright Air Black possesses the same potency. Its dark energy shocks us and shakes, yet it is impossible to pull away.' * Australian *
`Van's retelling promises to get to the heart of Medea's character. Vann is an author often highly praised for the quality of his prose, and Bright Air Black will hopefully see that trend continue. This is definitely one for readers with a love of Greek mythology, but also those that just enjoy great writing.' * AU Review *
`Bright Air Black is like a virus. It has infected me. I dream the world of this book, I feel it under my skin and in my blood. If you have not read David Vann's books then race out and do it now. I doubt he has written a faltering word. If you are a brave reader, unafraid of the dark places in your own soul, start your journey here with Bright Air Black.' -- Krissy Kneen
`What Vann does quite remarkably is to give you new emotional perspectives...A remarkable writing style, it's lyrical, like a great drumbeat going through the book.' * Radio NZ *
'Vann's treatment of Medea has all the gore and poetry of McCarthy's Blood Meridian...While the finale is well known, there are enough surprises in Vann's revision to maintain interest, and the story of Medea continues to resonate, as its longevity suggests, in our contemporary moment.' * Saturday Paper *
`Dark, visceral, lyrical, sinister, sad: David Vann's hypnotic reimagining of Greek mythology's famously fiendish Medea is masterful-the expressive style is bizarre but brilliant. This is a book for lovers of poetry, Greek mythology, or for anyone who likes their prose offbeat, magical, or unclassifiable.' * Readings *
`Bright Air Black is a compelling study of human nature stripped to its most elemental, and a vivid addition to the many interpretations of this character, who's complexity shows no sign of losing its allure.' * Guardian *
`Vann is one of the most thrilling writers to emerge in the past decade. For me his autobiographical novella Legend of a Suicide and successors such as Goat Mountain are the peaks of Vann's work so far, but Bright Air Black is right up there with them.' * Australian *
`Vann's prose conveys with striking immediacy a world where the real and the phantasmagorical, the human and the divine, are intricately entwined...His evocation of a barbaric world lingers long in the reader's imagination.' * Canberra Times *
`Van's choppy sentences are full of urgency and action, and the blood-soaked narrative never lacks momentum. Despite Medea's many acts of barbarity, Vann succeeds in creating a degree of sympathy for a women defiant to the end.' Big Issue * Big Issue *
`I was hooked from the arresting first page, swept along by the shimmering language and visceral images, and I found myself thinking anew about this ancient tragedy long after I finished the book...A powerful and rewarding read.' * Good Reading *
`Bright Air Black is a poetic fever dream, beautiful and unflinchingly primal. A vivid and forceful retelling of Medea's famous story.' * Madeline Miller *
`Vann's writing is poetic in style and the Medea of Bright Air Black is wild, powerful and primitive, echoing the earlier cinematic vision of Pier Paolo Pasolini.' * Sydney Review of Books *
`For those who feel Game of Thrones isn't savage enough, this may be the adventure for you.' * NZ Listener *
`Vann makes reading a gladiator sport...Rage boils on every page with all the intensity of Medea's cauldron. He writes in short jagged prose, which echoes the brutality of the content, the harshness and shortness of life, yet his poetic language is simultaneously incandescent.' * Otago Daily Times *
`Vann is an agile writer, almost aggressively adventurous with fiction as a form. Ambitious, and challenging, this novel is just what you would expect from him.' * Overland *
`Powerful.' * Australian Financial Review, 18 Best Books of 2017 *
