Psyche, Eros, and Mommy Stella
Part book review (of Luna McNamara's Psyche and Eros. Part memoir of a beloved aunt.
This is a book review, but it’s also a memory.
I’ve always found classical myths fascinating. For anything to survive the waves of time and memory, it should be a story that resonates through generations—a story so good it’s worth retelling. Recently, there’s been a resurgence in popularity of these Greco-Roman myths, with more and more novels reimagining them. They now occupy bookstore shelves and TikTok reels, creating a new genre. Madeline Miller brings us back to the Iliad in her 2011 novel, The Song of Achilles, now through the lens of Achilles’ lover, Patroclus. In her second novel, Circe (2018), Miller also recounts Homer’s Odyssey, but this time with the spotlight on Circe, the witch on the island of Aeaea. In Ariadne (2021), Jennifer Saint retells the story of the Minotaur from the perspective of the monster’s sister, including her encounters with Daedalus, the creator of the famous maze, Theseus, the hero who slayed the beast, and the god Dionysus, who found her alone on the island of Naxos. These are just the few I’ve already read, and with the expanse of these books on today’s bookshelves, I’m sure I’ll be reading more.
On one random bookstore stroll, I found yet another of these retellings. Psyche and Eros, the text read on the cover, by Luna McNamara. The cover was stunning: a mix of magenta and cyan, adorned with swords, arrows, and butterflies, overlain with the white text bearing the title and author. I knew the story, but I didn’t realize it had a 2023 retelling. I hesitated to buy it at first, unsure if it was worth the purchase, but in the days that followed, I continued to think about that book—the pristine cover, the deckled pages, the white text practically jumping off the page asking you to open the book—and thus, despite my already-full TBR (to-be-read) shelf, I bought myself a copy. I couldn’t resist, mainly because of 1) the divine cover, and 2) an unshakeable pull of nostalgia.
I first heard of the story more than twenty years ago, in my father’s childhood home in Bohol. I didn’t read the story as much as listened to it; not through an old mythology book but through Mommy Stella, my late aunt and Dad’s vibrant younger sister. Mommy Stella was a literature professor and quite the animated storyteller. We spent many summer afternoons on the living room couch, Mommy Stella narrating myths and legends like a rhapsode performing for an audience.
My aunt knew I liked love stories. I was starting to have school crushes, watch middle school series, and read Sweet Valley Kids, so I kept my ears peeled when Mommy Stella said she had a love story for me. She told me the story of Cupid and Psyche, the tale that Luna McNamara later adapted into the novel I bought. Cupid and Psyche had all the elements of an ancient romcom, a Disney fairytale, and an over-the-top teleserye: A beautiful mortal, a mysterious and unseen lover, an evil and jealous goddess, and a series of trials to challenge their love. I was glued to my seat the entire time. In a no-spoiler nutshell, it’s the story of how the god of love, Eros, gets pricked by his arrows, ultimately falling in love with the mortal, Psyche, much to the chagrin of his mother, Aphrodite, the goddess of love and beauty.
Cupid and Psyche’s story is the one Mommy Stella told me first. She narrated other tales, including Pyramus and Thisbe (later on inspiring Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet), Pygmalion and Galatea (adapted into Madeline Miller’s shorter novel, Galatea), and Orpheus and Eurydice (retold in a modern setting in Anaïs Mitchell’s musical, Hadestown). But I could tell Cupid and Psyche was her favorite because of how excited she was as she introduced characters or plot twists.
I heard of this story again in grade school as our class read Edith Hamilton’s Mythology: A Timeless Tale of Gods and Heroes (1942). Cupid and Psyche is the first story in the second part of the book, Stories of Love and Adventure. Reading something familiar made it less of a textbook and more of a fairytale for school. Cupid and Psyche’s motifs are featured in other well-known fairy tales, like Beauty and the Beast and Snow White. But I’ve never read a retelling, so I was excited to read McNamara’s version. It took me a while to finish it. The familiarity I found was a pro and a con: the pro because I already recognized most characters and I ultimately knew how it ended, and the con because knowing its ending meant there was no real urgency to go through the text. Still, Luna McNamara kept it interesting by taking liberties with the timelines and character arcs. In this version, Psyche has no evil sisters, but is related to the hero Perseus; Atalanta, Medusa, and Hera appear at different points; and the Trojan War figures prominently in the plot. It’s part of the allure of retelling a story, I guess, reimagining the context, adding new layers, or maybe weaving in another myth or two. After all, adaptations—whether in text, music, or film—are essentially fan fiction, another way to tell a story. Even the classical myths had different versions and interpretations, and I’m a fan of breathing new life into a well-loved narrative.
Like the original myth it was based on, the novel asks if a god and a mortal can ever truly fall in love, but in reality, it explores so much more. The story confronts the selfishness and pettiness of the gods (I’m sure we all know people who conduct themselves as if they were gods ruling the earth), the human obsession with legacy and memory, and the true purpose of our existence: How much of our lives are at the mercy of destiny? How much of our fate can we determine ourselves?
The most enduring lesson is what Mommy Stella taught me all those years ago: that love comes in all shapes and sizes, in all words and actions. The Greeks have multiple words for love, I learned in Psyche and Eros, because love presents itself in infinite ways. Mommy Stella taught me about love as she chronicled each romance of mythology, but she also exemplified love when she bought Koko Krunch at the break of dawn, knowing it was my favorite breakfast; when she painstakingly took out the crabmeat from our freshly cooked crab so I didn’t have to; when, in an attempt to distract me when Dad was in the ICU, she took my hand and played with me along the hospital hallways.
Love can be desire, or friendship, or sacrifice. It can be as loud as a thunderbolt or as quiet as a whisper. It can be easy or difficult, or both at the same time. It can come from a lover, a parent, a sibling, a mentor, a friend, or in this case, a beloved aunt. All of this is love, a truly human superpower.
Mommy Stella also taught me this: the people we love persist through stories and memories, even when they, eventually, become people we lose.
Mommy Stella died on the night of my junior prom. One minute I was dancing with my first boyfriend; the next, I was on a plane ride to Bohol, still unable to process my aunt’s death. I regret not speaking to her for so long or allowing time to pass as it did. As I arrived at their house in Bohol, I was transported back to that living room couch, wide-eyed and enchanted, listening to Mommy Stella’s storytelling. I remember her lively voice, her ferocious gestures, and the way her eyes lit up as we got to a pivotal scene. Even as I read Luna McNamara’s Psyche and Eros, I still heard her voice echoing through the page. McNamara’s version was excellent, but Mommy Stella’s will always be my favorite.
I thank Luna McNamara for reintroducing a story so dear to my heart. Through this novel, I think of Mommy Stella, one of the greatest storytellers I have ever known. I remember Mommy Stella as the Greeks remember Homer: a storyteller kept alive by stories she told.
