Autobiography of Red is a verse novel

Verse novel

A verse novel is a type of narrative poetry in which a novel-length narrative is told through the medium of poetry rather than prose. Either simple or complex stanzaic verse-forms may be used, but there will usually be a large cast, multiple voices, dialogue, narration, description, and action in a...

 by Anne Carson

Anne Carson

Anne Carson is a Canadian poet, essayist, translator and professor of Classics. Carson lived in Montreal for several years and taught at McGill University, the University of Michigan, and at Princeton University from 1980-1987....

, based loosely on the myth of Geryon

Geryon

In Greek mythology, Geryon , son of Chrysaor and Callirrhoe and grandson of Medusa, was a fearsome giant who dwelt on the island Erytheia of the mythic Hesperides in the far west of the Mediterranean. A more literal-minded later generation of Greeks associated the region with Tartessos in southern...

 and the Tenth Labor of Herakles, especially on surviving fragments of the lyric poet Stesichorus

Stesichorus

Stesichorus was the first great poet of the Greek West. He is best known for telling epic stories in lyric metres but he is also famous for some ancient traditions about his life, such as his opposition to the tyrant Phalaris, and the blindness he is said to have incurred and cured by composing...

' poem Geryoneis.

Autobiography of Red is the story of a boy named Geyron who, at least in a metaphorical sense, is the Greek monster Geryon. It is unclear how much of the mythological Geyron's connection to the story's Geyron is literal, and how much is metaphorical. The story's Geryon is mentioned as having red wings by the narrator, but as the characters do not acknowledge them, their significance seems more metaphorical than literal. Sexually abused by his older brother, his affectionate mother too weak-willed to protect him, the monstrous young boy finds solace in photography and in a romance with a young man named Herakles. Herakles leaves his young lover at the peak of Geryon's infatuation; when Geryon comes across Herakles several years later on a trip to Argentina

Argentina

Argentina , officially the Argentine Republic , is the second largest country in South America by land area, after Brazil. It is constituted as a federation of 23 provinces and an autonomous city, Buenos Aires...

, Herakles' new lover Ancash forms the third point of a love triangle

Love triangle

A love triangle is usually a romantic relationship involving three people. While it can refer to two people independently romantically linked with a third, it usually implies that each of the three people has some kind of relationship to the other two...

. The novel ends, ambiguously, with Geryon, Ancash, and Herakles stopping outside a bakery near a volcano

Volcano

2. Bedrock3. Conduit 4. Base5. Sill6. Dike7. Layers of ash emitted by the volcano8. Flank| 9. Layers of lava emitted by the volcano10. Throat11. Parasitic cone12. Lava flow13. Vent14. Crater15...

.

The book also contains Carson's very loose translation of the Geryoneis fragments, using many anachronism

Anachronism

An anachronism—from the Greek ανά and χρόνος — is an inconsistency in some chronological arrangement, especially a chronological misplacing of persons, events, objects, or customs in regard to each other...

s and taking many liberties, and some discussion of both Stesichorus and the Geryon myth, including a fictional interview with "Stesichorus," a veiled reference to Gertrude Stein

Gertrude Stein

Gertrude Stein was an American writer, poet and art collector who spent most of her life in France.-Early life:...

.