Orpheus Lost
Janet Turner Hospital’s latest novel Orpheus Lost, is an ambitious and compelling tale of terrorism, deception, love, music and mathematics. While in the Greek Myth Orpheus travels to the underworld to rescue his lover Eurydice from death, in this novel the gender roles are switched, and Leela May as the heroine, travels into an underworld of kidnapping and torture in search of her lover, Mishka. Orpheus Lost comes as America continues to grapple with its place in the world and the impact that the incongruously named “War on Terror” is having on its civilians and armed services. In town for the Sydney Writer’s Festival, Janet Turner Hospital caught up with The Wire and explained that her adopted city of Columbia places her in a prime position to observe the impact of the Iraq war on everyday Americans.