Greek myths are rarely kind to women, and Natalie Haynes has built a career by proving that they are rarely fair, either. In her most recent novel, No Friend to This House, the British classicist revisits an ancient tragedy through a modern lens. Haynes will discuss the book at the Kitchener Public Library on Mar. 16 as part of her tour, bringing her signature blend of feminist scholarship and dark humour to a local audience.
Based on Euripides’ version of this story, his play, Medea, No Friend to This House retells the story of the titular character – commonly thought of as the worst mother in all of Greek myth. But Haynes’s new novel forces readers to ask: is she?
Using her signature polyphonic structure (multiple viewpoints), No Friend to This House is mostly narrated by the women of the myth, including Medea herself. We meet her first as a priestess of Hekate, the goddess of magic and witchcraft. When Jason arrives in Colchis in pursuit of the golden fleece (owned by Medea’s father, the king,) Medea rushes to aid him. Fleeing punishment for her betrayal, she begs Jason to take her with him and make her his wife. He does, carrying her away aboard the Argo, and the two eventually have three children together. Yet Haynes makes it clear that Medea is never simply a helper to a hero. Unlike the mythic men around her who rely on divine gifts and enchanted weapons, Medea generates power herself. She does not need assistance. She is the one that others depend on. After years of wandering from kingdom to kingdom, they settle in Corinth, where Jason’s ambitions begin to shift. The story of Medea is a chilling one, and Haynes does not soften its brutality but instead, reframes it.
What makes No Friend to This House especially compelling is its emotional acuity. Haynes resists turning these mythological figures into distant symbols. Instead, she treats them as psychologically legible people navigating impossible circumstances. Importantly, unlike some retellings of her story, this version of Medea is never portrayed as irrational. Her choices are horrifying, but they are reasoned and deliberate. Her actions are the result of sustained emotional and moral calculation.
The final act of “revenge” feels intimate, tragic and intentional, not inevitable and sensationalized, as it often can be in other retellings. What makes Haynes’s portrayal especially unsettling is how recognizably human Medea feels. Her story is not a spectacle but a story of abandonment. She is a woman whose life has been dismantled by betrayal, exile and humiliation. The emotional logic may be ancient, but her experience is unmistakably contemporary.
Haynes’s investment in this myth is unmistakable. The story has been decades in the making. In fact, Haynes’s undergraduate dissertation examined infanticide in Greek myth, specifically comparing the figures of Medea and Hecabe. The research behind this novel is not simply an academic background, but the foundation of the book’s moral and emotional depth.
Even the title carries classical weight. No Friend to This House echoes a line from Euripides’ Medea, spoken by the Nurse to the Tutor after he reveals that the king (, Jason’s new father-in-law to be,) plans to banish Medea and her children. The Nurse insists Jason would never agree to this, but the Tutor insists it is true. “That man,” he tells her, “Is no friend to this house.”
Haynes’s retelling asks what happens when a woman who has given everything up, discovers she was never truly protected. Medea’s banishment is not only meant to be a physical wedge between her and her husband, but a social and emotional one. Jason’s ambitions come at the price of Medea and her children. By centering the women in this myth, No Friend to This House transforms a familiar tragedy into something new, unsettling, and raw.
When she arrives in Kitchener this month, Haynes brings not just a novel, but a reconsideration of one of Greek myth’s most infamous women and a reminder that even the oldest stories can still provoke new questions.
Contributed Photo/Sheryl Madakkai
