IMMORALITY AND IMMORTALITY

Appleton’s novel explores past lives and Greek myths.

In Italy, 1972, the unnamed narrator spots a woman who was his wife in a former life. The narrator is an American artist housesitting outside Rome. He’s hip to ideas about astral projection and reincarnation and is currently a “seven green,” meaning that he’s on his seventh reincarnation and that his aura is green. Naturally, when he tells the woman (named Valeria) that they were together in a time that she can’t remember, she’s skeptical. The two nevertheless form a friendship, and both undergo hypnosis. It is through such exploration that they learn about more than just their time together in ancient Rome; they knew each other long before then. In fact, he is Apollo, and she Daphne, the figures from Greek mythology. Yet just as these two old souls seem to be making a connection, Valeria and her family leave town. The story continues as the narrator lives his life with the knowledge that he is the mortal reincarnation of Apollo. This narrative, combining history, myth, and worldly problems, ventures to unexpected places—the narrator encounters obstacles ranging from an apologetic demon named Nagasura to an unhappy marriage with an alcoholic wife. The story takes on the feel of a memoir when the narrator discusses famous people he’s met and his various relationships, both romantic and otherwise. Some of these anecdotes prove to be anticlimactic, such as when he recalls how, when he was a child (in his current incarnation), he handed a bouquet of roses to Jackie Kennedy. Yet such mundane recollections help to ground some of the more outlandish events. The final pages kick things up a notch once Apollo learns the truth about some other figures from the days of the Greek gods.

A slow, expansive tale that engagingly combines the everyday with the mythological.