[A] capable update ... Even though the reader is given direct access, literarily speaking, to Emer’s maternal wrath, the character never comes to life. She’s too much a cartoon of progressive hypocrisy ... She twists the tale just enough to needle our conceptions of coercion and desire without quite defying them.
Lyon relates this often troubling story in gorgeous prose that’s so vivid and luminous it contrasts starkly with the darkness of the subject matter. Every sentence is a feast, tempting you to push on further even as the discomfiting action of the plot and the often frustrating, deluded, self-defeating characters conspire to push you away ... Lyon closes the book in an ambiguous rush of feeling and fury that comes across as neither triumph nor tragedy. Or perhaps it’s some tainted mixture of the two. It would be hard to call Fruit of the Dead a satisfying read; but perhaps there’s a bit of ugly truth to be found in its imperfect protagonists and dizzy, disorienting denouement.
In lush, hallucinatory prose, Lyon narrates from the perspectives of both mother and daughter and evokes the classic myth without distracting readers from the striking contemporary setting and subject matter.
Readers need not be overly familiar with the myth to enjoy the well-told story. An affecting novel with touches of the fantastical, weaving explorations of power, youth, wealth, and familial love.
