The Medusa Head

The image of the Medusa, her hair a tangle of snakes, her face an awful aspect of what had, in earlier times, been a symbol of female wisdom, looms over the lives of three artists of the 1970s. The Vietnam War is coming to an inglorious end as the so-called sexual revolution is changing the patterns of life for a new generation. Not unlike today, a sense of chaos and rebellion is sending people out into the streets to express anger and frustration.

In mythology, Minerva punished Medusa when she came upon Neptune raping her. In an ancient version of "she must have wanted it." Minerva turned on Medusa, changing her glorious hair to snakes. Her beauty, which had attracted the god, then became a monstrous threat that turned any man who looked on her to stone. When the warrior Perseus finally beheads Medusa by deflecting her image onto a shield, he learns that her head on his sword can be used to destroy armies of men.

As with so many myths, this Medusa story invaded our consciousness, becoming an invisible metaphor for relationships between the gods and mortals, between men and women, between the beloved and the feared "other." Women of the mid-twentieth century often found themselves called bra-burners, whores, bitches, Playboy Bunnies, Stepford wives, house slaves, teases, queens, prima donnas. Thus we were named. Men were not renamed in the sexual liberation movement, but most felt liberated.

As women began to think about the images of Medusa in Caravaggio and other artists over the ages, we began to recognize how powerful this myth is, how destructive it could be, and how ingrained in our psyches it had become.

This novel, The Medusa Head, takes place in the 1970s at the beginning of that awareness. It involves an attempted rape, a murder, betrayal, and the real, non-mythical lives of a group of young people trying to make sense of their lives. In many ways it anticipates the harsher and more political backlash against female sexuality that is taking place today. It begins with the gift of a Medusa Head medallion that inspires a painting.