What do you think?
Rate this book
For Her Dark Skin
For Her Dark Skin is a tightly crafted exploration of the story of Jason and Medea weaving both traditional and contemporary fictional and thematic elements into a sharply ironic tale of revenge, ambition, passion and pride. Desires and consequences lead the all-too-human characters through a piercing new interpretation of classic themes.
160 pages, Hardcover
First published December 1, 1990
5 people are currently reading
995 people want to read
About the author
Percival Everett
71 books8,972 followersPercival L. Everett (born 1956) is an American writer and Distinguished Professor of English at the University of Southern California.
There might not be a more fertile mind in American fiction today than Everett’s. In 22 years, he has written 19 books, including a farcical Western, a savage satire of the publishing industry, a children’s story spoofing counting books, retellings of the Greek myths of Medea and Dionysus, and a philosophical tract narrated by a four-year-old.
The Washington Post has called Everett “one of the most adventurously experimental of modern American novelists.” And according to The Boston Globe, “He’s literature’s NASCAR champion, going flat out, narrowly avoiding one seemingly inevitable crash only to steer straight for the next.”
Everett, who teaches courses in creative writing, American studies and critical theory, says he writes about what interests him, which explains his prolific output and the range of subjects he has tackled. He also describes himself as a demanding teacher who learns from his students as much as they learn from him.
Everett’s writing has earned him the PEN USA 2006 Literary Award (for his 2005 novel, Wounded), the Academy Award for Literature of the American Academy of Arts and Letters and the Hurston/Wright Legacy Award (for his 2001 novel, Erasure), the PEN/Oakland-Josephine Miles Award for Excellence in Literature (for his 1996 story collection, Big Picture) and the New American Writing Award (for his 1990 novel, Zulus). He has served as a judge for, among others, the 1997 National Book Award for fiction and the PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction in 1991.
There might not be a more fertile mind in American fiction today than Everett’s. In 22 years, he has written 19 books, including a farcical Western, a savage satire of the publishing industry, a children’s story spoofing counting books, retellings of the Greek myths of Medea and Dionysus, and a philosophical tract narrated by a four-year-old.
The Washington Post has called Everett “one of the most adventurously experimental of modern American novelists.” And according to The Boston Globe, “He’s literature’s NASCAR champion, going flat out, narrowly avoiding one seemingly inevitable crash only to steer straight for the next.”
Everett, who teaches courses in creative writing, American studies and critical theory, says he writes about what interests him, which explains his prolific output and the range of subjects he has tackled. He also describes himself as a demanding teacher who learns from his students as much as they learn from him.
Everett’s writing has earned him the PEN USA 2006 Literary Award (for his 2005 novel, Wounded), the Academy Award for Literature of the American Academy of Arts and Letters and the Hurston/Wright Legacy Award (for his 2001 novel, Erasure), the PEN/Oakland-Josephine Miles Award for Excellence in Literature (for his 1996 story collection, Big Picture) and the New American Writing Award (for his 1990 novel, Zulus). He has served as a judge for, among others, the 1997 National Book Award for fiction and the PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction in 1991.
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 18 of 18 reviews
July 9, 2024
An original take on a Classical Greek myth, Jason—and his band, The Argonauts, the rockinest beat combo in all the Mediterranean (and beyond)—is pretty much a fucking idiot. Delightfully so, don’t get me wrong; this is a great rendering of him as a coward, braggart, vainglorious prick. The choice to switch perspectives by chapter-let is fantastic, allowing Medea an interiority as complex as it is plain badass (I think Thomas Bulfinch said the same). The round-robin of first-person takes on the Escalating Inevitable is ingenious—not just Jay and Mads, but Polydeuces (Greek for “many two’s”), Tamar, Eros, Aeetes, etc—and shifts the traditional locus of power. Sadly, the Golden Fleece remains mute.
Rhodius’ myth: you know the sequence of events (wildly altered here) so proceed to discover a Medea-as-juju-witch/lioness mother whose actions make Lady MacBeth’s downright wholesome by comparison. To give England her right and propers, Medea doesn’t quite reach Myra Hindley’s batting average. Hey, what the shit is with that England? Manchester, so much to answer for.
Over the moors…
Over and out—
Rhodius’ myth: you know the sequence of events (wildly altered here) so proceed to discover a Medea-as-juju-witch/lioness mother whose actions make Lady MacBeth’s downright wholesome by comparison. To give England her right and propers, Medea doesn’t quite reach Myra Hindley’s batting average. Hey, what the shit is with that England? Manchester, so much to answer for.
Over the moors…
Over and out—
January 21, 2013
I’m giving Percival Everett’s For Her Dark Skin a cool three stars. It’s a retelling of the Medea myth (following Euripides’ own rather late interpretation*) but it falls rather short of saying something new – at least to me.
As Christa Wolf does in her Medea, Everett tells the tale in brief chapters told from various points of view, chief among them being Jason, the traditional hero of the myth; Polydeuces, the brother of Helen of Troy and in this version Jason’s friend; Tamar, a woman of Corinth and Polydeuces’ wife; and Medea.** While all four are rather richly developed characters, and I liked how the latter three interacted with each other, I couldn’t accept the sum total of their interactions. By which I mean that I could never accept Medea and Jason getting together in the first place. In the myth, Aphrodite has her son Eros shot Medea with an arrow of love, making it fated that she would fall for Jason and help him steal the fleece, even to the extent of murdering her own brother, Apsyrtus. But in For Her Dark Skin, the gods, as real beings, are absent. Medea excuses her actions as the result of Eros’ arrow (and she even has converse with the imp in parts of the novel) but these can be construed as her own consciousness rationalizing her actions. Aside from Eros, no other god appears as a character. Given that and given that we understand from Medea’s first appearance that she despises Jason, I couldn’t believe that she would do all she does for him.
There are hints, however, of deeper motivations that a longer novel might have brought out to greater effect. For example, Everett usually portrays Medea as worldly and wise but elsewhere hints at a youthfulness and naiveté suggesting the Medea who fell in love with Jason was a moonstruck teen-ager. Or there’s the possibility that Medea sees Jason as a means to escape a life she finds stultifying (a decision she quickly comes to regret). The dissonance within the characterization of the novel’s chief character is the book’s greatest weakness.
That said, I still liked the book (though I’m glad I first read Everett’s more mature novels; I’m not sure I would have read more from him if this had been my first): Recommended with caveats.
Finally, there are some instances of terrific writing or interesting lines that I can’t fit into the review but which I found interesting: Jason and Medea are the quintessential dysfunctional couple. While Medea has scoped Jason out very well, Jason is such a self-centered imbecile that it’s almost comical. For example, Jason expects Medea to be the perfect (ancient) Greek wife: submissive and compliant to her husband’s wishes. In one scene, as told from Jason’s POV, he berates her for leaving his presence without permission:
The same scene as told from Medea’s POV:
I also liked these two quotes:
“Spare me your lofty philosophy, your oriental rambling. I truly believe that men should never set out for adventure; they learn things, but gain no wisdom.” (p. 46)
“It struck me that man was the only creature capable of denying something known to be true. Nature had not done well by us.” (p. 115)
* Everett makes Tamar a cousin of Euripides. One chapter is a letter from her to him laying out what’s happening in Corinth.
** Polydeuces is perhaps better known to the general public by his Latin name of Pollux. He is the twin brother of Castor and (as mentioned above) his sister is Helen of Troy. Aside from his attested participation in the quest for the Golden Fleece, Everett largely ignores Polydeuces’ accepted mythography. Tamar is wholly an invention of Everett’s.
As Christa Wolf does in her Medea, Everett tells the tale in brief chapters told from various points of view, chief among them being Jason, the traditional hero of the myth; Polydeuces, the brother of Helen of Troy and in this version Jason’s friend; Tamar, a woman of Corinth and Polydeuces’ wife; and Medea.** While all four are rather richly developed characters, and I liked how the latter three interacted with each other, I couldn’t accept the sum total of their interactions. By which I mean that I could never accept Medea and Jason getting together in the first place. In the myth, Aphrodite has her son Eros shot Medea with an arrow of love, making it fated that she would fall for Jason and help him steal the fleece, even to the extent of murdering her own brother, Apsyrtus. But in For Her Dark Skin, the gods, as real beings, are absent. Medea excuses her actions as the result of Eros’ arrow (and she even has converse with the imp in parts of the novel) but these can be construed as her own consciousness rationalizing her actions. Aside from Eros, no other god appears as a character. Given that and given that we understand from Medea’s first appearance that she despises Jason, I couldn’t believe that she would do all she does for him.
There are hints, however, of deeper motivations that a longer novel might have brought out to greater effect. For example, Everett usually portrays Medea as worldly and wise but elsewhere hints at a youthfulness and naiveté suggesting the Medea who fell in love with Jason was a moonstruck teen-ager. Or there’s the possibility that Medea sees Jason as a means to escape a life she finds stultifying (a decision she quickly comes to regret). The dissonance within the characterization of the novel’s chief character is the book’s greatest weakness.
That said, I still liked the book (though I’m glad I first read Everett’s more mature novels; I’m not sure I would have read more from him if this had been my first): Recommended with caveats.
Finally, there are some instances of terrific writing or interesting lines that I can’t fit into the review but which I found interesting: Jason and Medea are the quintessential dysfunctional couple. While Medea has scoped Jason out very well, Jason is such a self-centered imbecile that it’s almost comical. For example, Jason expects Medea to be the perfect (ancient) Greek wife: submissive and compliant to her husband’s wishes. In one scene, as told from Jason’s POV, he berates her for leaving his presence without permission:
She gained her feet and her balance, for a second, seemed to desert her. She became steady, straightened, and walked away toward her chamber.
“Medea!” I shouted.
She stopped.
“I have not dismissed you.”
She turned to face me. “Would you repeat that?” she asked.
“I have not dismissed you.”
Her eyes teared. (p. 102)
The same scene as told from Medea’s POV:
I could find no words that this creature would understand, none that would find entry into his tunnel of perception. So, I stood and started for my bed. He stopped me with a shout and I turned to hear him say –
“I have not dismissed you.” Twice he said it.
“And you do well not to,” I said. (p. 103)
I also liked these two quotes:
“Spare me your lofty philosophy, your oriental rambling. I truly believe that men should never set out for adventure; they learn things, but gain no wisdom.” (p. 46)
“It struck me that man was the only creature capable of denying something known to be true. Nature had not done well by us.” (p. 115)
* Everett makes Tamar a cousin of Euripides. One chapter is a letter from her to him laying out what’s happening in Corinth.
** Polydeuces is perhaps better known to the general public by his Latin name of Pollux. He is the twin brother of Castor and (as mentioned above) his sister is Helen of Troy. Aside from his attested participation in the quest for the Golden Fleece, Everett largely ignores Polydeuces’ accepted mythography. Tamar is wholly an invention of Everett’s.
April 18, 2021
An imaginative and hilarious retelling of the Greek myth of Jason and Medea, with Medea drawn as from "a land of darker-skinned people" and of whom Jason says to her father: "Her beautiful dark skin will make her a queen in my land." As a sample of what the story holds, Medea's father "shook his head and laughed when they were gone. 'A queen for her dark skin. That shit will last for a day.'"
This is among the early novels by my favorite living American author, published in 1990 by Owl Creek Press. It is out of print and very difficult to acquire, and I count myself lucky to have found a copy.
This is among the early novels by my favorite living American author, published in 1990 by Owl Creek Press. It is out of print and very difficult to acquire, and I count myself lucky to have found a copy.
November 1, 2022
Percival Everett shifts gears again for his fourth novel, this time trying his hand at retelling the Greek story of Jason and Medea. Funny and profane, For Her Dark Skin reimagines Medea as a Black woman and Jason as callow, callous, cowardly, and not too bright. The story zips along. I read it on a Kindle app because I couldn't lay hands on a print copy, and I arrived at the final page without realizing where I was, heightening the surprise and shock of the finale.
September 9, 2007
This is an absolutely brilliant and hilarious book. It's a retelling of the story of Medea. It's a short book, and I think out of print; however, if you can get your hands on a copy... READ IT. IT'S TOTALLY WORTH IT!
January 19, 2012
My favorite moment was when Medea put Cupid in a choke hold and wrestled him to the ground.
June 10, 2022
Oooh, that was so good. So biting and darkly humorous. Euripides paved the way, and Everett makes Medea real.
August 9, 2022
This was okay? Honestly between a two and a three for me. I think I may still teach it this fall because it has a distinct tone and pace from the other fiction I'm teaching in my mythology adaptations course, and we could probably use its wry momentum by the time we reach the tragedies unit. The best part of this novella for me is the way that Percival Everett reworks Jason and the golden fleece into an allegory for colonialism and its exploitation of Black women. The weakness of the whole for me is its relative flatness. Though the characters who react to Jason and Medea (Polydeuces and Tamar) are more compelling and nuanced, in the spirit of broad satire, Medea is sexy and powerful, and Jason is self-involved, macho, and dumb. The tragic denouement lands in a strange way given this semi-humorous tone. There's something about the childbirth scene, when Medea longs for her children to dissolve, that is disturbing and raw, but the ultimate murder/revenge feels pat compared to this pain. I couldn't quite feel the overall thematic or formal purpose of the whole, though again, Everett gets a lot of mileage out of white explorers who see themselves as virile gods among men in spite of all of their overtly evident failings and their constant exploitation of people of color and their resources and knowledges.
October 2, 2024
She made it sound like a threat. "I love you," she said. And I believed her.
October 3, 2020
Everett’s depiction of the story of Jason and Medea isn’t much different from previous versions, but it’s hypnotically written and offers the central characters more inner life than Euripides’s version.
I was especially fascinated by the presentation of Medea’s love for Jason as being entirely at odds with her personal feelings—never have I seen a story where a character shot by Cupid’s arrow retains loathing for the object of their affections, literally loving them against their will. I almost wish that Everett had gone further into Medea’s internal divide but, even in its limited form, it’s a killer concept.
I also appreciated Jason’s characterization as an oblivious, self-centered buffoon rather than the Greek hero he is normally remembered as. This retelling is also noteworthy for the racialized lens that it applies to the relationship between Medea and Jason, as well as between the Argonauts and the people of Colchis, although I would call this commentary more subtextual than explicit.
Despite its short length, there are some fascinating concepts for mythology fans to ponder in For Her Dark Skin. I plan to read more of Everett’s mythological retellings in the future.
3 stars.
I was especially fascinated by the presentation of Medea’s love for Jason as being entirely at odds with her personal feelings—never have I seen a story where a character shot by Cupid’s arrow retains loathing for the object of their affections, literally loving them against their will. I almost wish that Everett had gone further into Medea’s internal divide but, even in its limited form, it’s a killer concept.
I also appreciated Jason’s characterization as an oblivious, self-centered buffoon rather than the Greek hero he is normally remembered as. This retelling is also noteworthy for the racialized lens that it applies to the relationship between Medea and Jason, as well as between the Argonauts and the people of Colchis, although I would call this commentary more subtextual than explicit.
Despite its short length, there are some fascinating concepts for mythology fans to ponder in For Her Dark Skin. I plan to read more of Everett’s mythological retellings in the future.
3 stars.
February 19, 2024
A short exercise by Percival Everett, to be read in an afternoon. Everett never repeats himself. This is a tale of a gleaming black semi-goddess, Medea, and Jason (of the golden fleece) who is presented here as a self-absorbed rather cowardly leader who marries Medea. Medea despises him but is under a spell that forces her to love him. The results all around are bad, as would befit any Greek tragedy. One way to think of it is a professor of literature letting off a bit of steam. Whatever you think, it is a well-told tale, a real page turner, and you may never again look at the Greek classics in the same way.
February 3, 2025
I guess this should be called a reimagined version of Jason and the Argonauts.
Told through the constantly shifting perspective of the tale's main players, Everett gives us a decent story about desire, consequence and vengeance.
Once again, as with his previous novels, I thought the ending was too abrupt. However, there was at least a feeling of 'completeness' here.
Told through the constantly shifting perspective of the tale's main players, Everett gives us a decent story about desire, consequence and vengeance.
Once again, as with his previous novels, I thought the ending was too abrupt. However, there was at least a feeling of 'completeness' here.
Read
October 20, 2025Then we saw a familiar coastline. We were pushed to it by a slow, steady breeze. There was no excitement on board, no one muttering softly and longingly, "Home." There was just a familiar coastline. Hellas. Home. Perhaps, we were just exhausted. Perhaps, wiser.
July 1, 2021
A retelling of the Medea/Jason story. Very well done.
July 20, 2024
A short retelling of the story of Jason and Medea that effing rules.
December 7, 2023
This book was just kind of weird. I think most of my issues with it stemmed from the fact that it was so short, so while it kept trying to do these interesting things (feminist take on Medea, exploration of the role of racism in ancient myths, lambasting of the hero trope, etc.) it never had time for them to get off the ground and left me confused about what the story was trying to say. I liked it overall, and am going to read his other mythology retelling, but it definitely doesn't make my top 10 of mythology retellings.
January 19, 2009
Perhaps a little ambitious for a startup writer - to try to put a current spin on greek mythology. It is really the book's downfall. Not to mention that the part of the Medea story it covers is the boring, middling part, with the slightest wisp of focus on her revenge (which for those unfamiliar is the best part).
Displaying 1 - 18 of 18 reviews