An Arrow's Flight: A Novel (1998)

The best book of the 1990s. An alternate history placing the Trojan Wars in modern times, and based on the myth of the success of the Greeks in the Trojan War being dependent on Neoptolemus (son of Achilles, called Pyrrhus) bringing Philoctetes' bow (a gift from Heracles) to Troy. This version of the myth depicts Pyrrhus as a stripper in a gay bar, hired by Odysseus to seduce Philoctetes as a means of getting the bow. Philoctetes' injury, the snake bite, takes the place of HIV/AIDS. Moving, vivid, the language bridges the classic and modern.

I love this book, in part because of Merlis's use of anachronism, which some people find gimmicky. I don't care. He uses the story of the Trojan War to talk about AIDS and the "gay community" and I just found it really moving. ( )

Brilliant from beginning to end.

I have never read a book where the narrator so clearly and personally addresses himself to his gay male audience as this one.

There is more than a bit of sex in this book but it is realistic and not gratuitous. Overall, it is a very thoughtful book that explores the theme of destiny.

Its playful anachronisms (set in ancient Greece but with all the modern conveniences) never gets boring (unlike some other books that try this) but also in my mind applies the ancient themes of fate to modern times. Who doesn't know a Pyrrhus? Young, beautiful, indestructible (or thinks he is), escapes from the family home to a flat in the big city, sex, drugs, like an arrows flight. ( )

For someone who does not know much about Greek history and the myth, this book is an eye-opener. Never knew there was a continuation after Achilles and Troy saga. This book was written brilliantly, if not deep, with a good play of words and humor. So, the story continued after Achilles was brought down, with the main character being Achilles's son - Pyrrhus, who hustled for money to pay for his freedom from his castle life. And then came the message that he was supposed to lead the war to win the battle against Troy. The fun had already begun even before the ship sailed off, with Pyrrhus. ( )

Really pretty stunning. It would, of course, have to end with HIV, although the refiguring of the sack of Troy (which never happens here) is one of the more original and interesting takes on the beginning of HIV that there is. The writing is witty and comes at the reader with great velocity - I can't think of a better way to describe it. The story is almost always breathless. This is an erudite, playful, thought-provoking book, and is sending me back to read the Aeneid for the first time in a decade.

As to all the *sex,* either you're a gay man, in which case the descriptions of sex are overwrought but onto something deep, or you're not a gay man, in which case you ought to deal since gay men deal with depictions of everyone else in the world having sex all the time. ( )