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【怪物的自傳，解放深處的愛與慾望】
Autobiography of Red
Geryon是一隻長著翅膀的紅色怪物。他在五歲時收到一本精緻的筆記本，決定用它寫下自己的自傳。Geryon的與眾不同無處可藏，不僅在家不受待見，學校生活更是苦不堪言。長年的歧視和欺侮，使得Geryon自卑又怯弱，直到長成少年的他遇上Herakles 。Herakles 勇敢又自信，完全是Geryon的相反，而且他竟然接納Geryon是紅色怪物的事實。Herakles深信祖父母口中岩漿人的傳說，從小便下定決心要找到那座住著岩漿人的火山。Geryon深受這樣的Herakles吸引，在Herakles邀請他一起踏上尋找火山的旅程時，Geryon毫不猶豫地答應了。沒想到，這趟旅程，讓這兩個少年的命運迎向不可挽回的轉折…
本書以自由詩的形式寫成小說 (Novel in Verse)，以希臘神話海克力士十二試煉中第十篇「瘋牛」(The Bull)為原型改編，英雄故事在作者Anne Carson筆下寫成了淒美的愛情故事。全書圍繞火山為母題，藉各種型態的火山比喻人的情慾流動，並以怪物比喻不被社會接納的群體，探討了性別認知、同性議題、情感與欲望等面向。
A NEW YORK TIMES NOTABLE BOOK OF THE YEAR
National Book Critics Circle Award Finalist
The award-winning poet reinvents a genre in a stunning work that is both a novel and a poem, both an unconventional re-creation of an ancient Greek myth and a wholly original coming-of-age story set in the present.
Geryon, a young boy who is also a winged red monster, reveals the volcanic terrain of his fragile, tormented soul in an autobiography he begins at the age of five. As he grows older, Geryon escapes his abusive brother and affectionate but ineffectual mother, finding solace behind the lens of his camera and in the arms of a young man named Herakles, a cavalier drifter who leaves him at the peak of infatuation. When Herakles reappears years later, Geryon confronts again the pain of his desire and embarks on a journey that will unleash his creative imagination to its fullest extent. By turns whimsical and haunting, erudite and accessible, richly layered and deceptively simple, Autobiography of Red is a profoundly moving portrait of an artist coming to terms with the fantastic accident of who he is.
