35 pages • 1 hour read
A Touch of Darkness
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Background
Historical Context: The Original Myths
A Touch of Darkness is a retelling of the classical Greek myth of Hades and Persephone. Despite her novel’s modern setting, St. Clair fills her narrative world with legends, characters, places, and divine beings drawn from classical mythology. The ancient Greeks used myths to describe historical events, religious rituals, and even everyday occurrences. Myths were a way for the Greeks to contextualize and explain the world around them in the absence of the science and technology of more modern times. Surviving Greek stories of the origins of the universe and the gods date to around 700 B.C. The earliest recorded examples of Greek mythology stem from epic poems attributed to Homer, such as The Odyssey, that mesh heroic figures with divine intervention and mythical creatures. St. Clair’s novel recontextualizes many of these figures and gods. For example, Adonis is featured in Greek mythology as someone Aphrodite blessed with tremendous beauty at his birth; in the novel, he is depicted as an adult man who has a more physically intimate relationship with Aphrodite.
More specifically, the myth of Persephone and Hades is one of violence, which is much different than St. Clair’s representation of their relationship. In the original myth, Persephone is kidnapped by Hades and becomes trapped in the Underworld after she eats a pomegranate seed. Demeter becomes so distressed at her absence that she does not allow crops to grow; this provides an explanation for the existence of winter. Hades allows her to be free for part of the year, so that her return to earth explains the transition to spring. Persephone’s lack of individual agency is a common characteristic of both the novel and the myth, and questions of power and love are central to both versions of her story.
Literary Context: The Romance Genre
The romance genre contains books that are mainly focused on the romantic love or attraction between two people. While many books contain elements of romance, for this genre the love relationship—or lack thereof—is central to the plot. The romance genre is not to be confused with Romanticism, which refers to artistic creations of the 18th and 19th centuries in Europe and the US that focused on themes such as individualism, political liberty, sentimentalism, and nature. Romance novels often focus on emotions and reactions, and many external plot points serve to introduce conflict into a growing or established relationship in these books. Romance novels are frequently subdivided into categories such as historical, contemporary, LGBTQ+, inspirational, and fantasy. A Touch of Darkness falls into the category of speculative romance due to its inclusion of fantasy elements.
Romance is the top-selling literary genre in the US in terms of the number of books sold. Approximately one third of all paperback books sold in the US are romances. Traditionally, most romance genre readers are heterosexual women, and the market is broadening, due in part to the influence of BookTok. Recent trends also underscore that increasing numbers of men and readers with broader sexualities are picking up romance novels, which is indicative of changes in the literature market (“About the Romance Genre” Romance Writers of America, ).
In recent years, there has been significant pushback from romance readers against the broader publishing industry. Romance is generally the most profitable book genre in the US, grossing over $1 billion in sales each year. This accounts for one third of the entire fiction market, yet very few awards are designed with the romance genre in mind (“What Are the Best-Selling Book Genres?” Argyle Fox Publishing,). This lack of literary acknowledgement is attributed to the fact that romance novels are traditionally written by, for, and about female audiences. Many writers and readers critique the disrespect of the romance genre as an extension of a broader misogyny directed at women in the arts. The role of gender-based discrimination in defining genres as “lesser” in terms of media representation or inclusion in broader literary communities provides important context as to who is counted among a target audience and what that audience represents.
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By Scarlett St. Clair
