Kate Towner Under Review:Vile Lady Villains. Danai Cristopoulou. Union Square & Co, May 2026. In Danai Cristopoulou’s debut novel Vile Lady Villains, readers meet Lady Macbeth and Klytemnestra, villains from Shakespeare and Aeschylus, immediately after the murders each is famous for. Yanked out of their respective plays to wander a dreamscape of stories and refigured as (anti?)heroines within this ambitious metafictional narrative, they rename each other—Anassa (the Greek word for queen) and Claret (British slang for blood) respectively—and form a strong bond through their adventures. They travel to meet witches, fates, gods, their relatives, their antecedents, other literary characters, and an author, and fight to write their own endings. They have different perspectives on their own pasts and stories, which are carried forward into their characterization here. Claret (for clarity, I will use the new names in this review when I’m discussing the book, and the original names in…
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