Geryon is introduced as a young boy, walking to school with his "bigger and older" (23) brother, whom will later bully and sexually abuse Geryon. The novel begins with an epigraph by Emily Dickinson in the form of a poem about a volcano. Finally, Carson includes a section, formatted in either/or statements, attempting to-though never quite-clearing up Stesichoros' blindness. Stesichoros gets his sight back by writing a "palinode" (16) to Helen, in which he retracts his previous poem. Carson then introduces the story of how Helen of Troy allegedly strikes Stesichoros blind for writing unsavory things about Helen. The fragments tell the tale of Geryon, "a monster everything about him was red" (9), growing up on an island with his parents and dog, then both being slain by Herakles' "killing club" (13) and "arrow" (13). The novel begins with an introduction to Stesichoros' poetic style, along with some fragments of his poem, “Geryoneis,” translated by Carson.
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