Myths and legends have long helped humans make meaning from the world around them. And queer identities have been a part of them from the earliest times. Author Guido A. Sanchez has therefore collected 20 myths from various cultures and presented them here in a way that emphasizes that queerness, sometimes making the implicit clear or unerasing what has been lost.
Some of the stories are ones many readers may know, whether they are aware of the queerness or not: that of Achilles and Patroclus from Greek myth, of David and Jonathan from the Bible, of the Norse Loki. But we also learn of Tu’er Shen, the Chinese rabbit god and protector of queer love; of Ghede Nibo, the Haitian spirit who performed in extravagant costumes; and of many other figures from Aztec, Beninese, Chilean, Hawaiian, Indian, Inuit, Tagalog/Filipino, Polynesian, and Romanian cultures (sometimes with roots that spread even further), across a range of queer identities. Each myth is told in three to five pages of text, with a vivid illustration by James Fenner to start each one.
Sanchez insists that “None of the stories retold here have been significantly changed. They are being told now, in this moment, through my voice. But every single myth included in this book—plus many others, enough for whole other volumes—has a queer identity in it.”
Sanchez’s versions stay mostly true to their originals, although he takes some small liberties. Is the Greek god Hermes “most known around the world as a style connoisseur”? (I’d argue his fame is because of his messenger skills.) Is it correct to say that “Loki could never understand the homophobia, transphobia, and misogyny of Odin and the other gods?” when the terms and concepts “homosexual” and “transgender” (and their phobias) didn’t exist at the time the legends were created? (Not that there weren’t same-sex-loving and transgender people, but they didn’t necessarily align with our modern definitions.)
We can perhaps overlook these small adjustments to the stories, though; each iteration of the tales down the centuries performs similar acts of interpretation and accommodation to its time. The larger achievement remains praiseworthy: showing how queerness, broadly speaking, has legitimately always been a part of the human experience, embedded in many of our oldest and most treasured tales. For young readers (and even some older ones), such a creation is invaluable, and this volume should find many fans.
