Red Doc>

Red Doc> is a 2013 novel in verse by Canadian poet, translator, and classicist Anne Carson. A sequel to 1998’s Autobiography of Red—in which Carson imagined Greek legend’s winged, red monster Geryon as a sensitive gay teenager— Red Doc> follows Geryon’s adult life. Now simply “G,” Geryon is aging and lost, while his former boyfriend Herakles, re-dubbed “Sad But Great,” is a war veteran suffering from PTSD. As Carson points out in her introductory note to the reader, “To live past the end of your myth is a perilous thing.” Less realist than Autobiography, Red Doc> is told in fragmentary verse which recalls the origin of Carson’s story in a literal fragment, the surviving lines of the Gerioneis by the Ancient Greek poet Stesichorus.

The story opens as G tells his mother about Sad But Great, who has recently returned from war, “wounded / messed up / are they giving him care / a guy shows up with a padded envelope / of drugs every night I / guess.”

G’s mother reveals that she is scheduled for surgery; she asks G not to come with her: “ well if you change your mind / I won’t.”

A standalone poem entitled and spoken by “Wife of Brain” introduces the next part of the story: “scene is / a little red hut where G lives alone / time / evening.” This voice recurs throughout the story, serving the function of a dramatic chorus.

G returns to the shack where he lives and tends to a herd of musk oxen. He thinks about Sad and how much has changed since they first met. His own beauty, he thinks sadly, is fading: “Gathering swim / gear in the bathroom he / glances at the mirror. / Sharp stab his face no / longer young no more / beauty impact.”

In a flashback, we learn how G was reunited with Sad. As he wandered under an underpass, G was attacked by Ida, a homeless woman who mistakenly believed he was trying to commandeer her territory. Recognizing her mistake, Ida nursed G back to health. Having met Sad in a mental hospital, Ida was able to reacquaint the former lovers. G found Sad changed, broken by war, "ragged eyes pouring in/ every direction.” In a reference to Carson’s earlier verse-novel, Sad asked him:

“What ever

happened to your

autobiography says Sad

you were always fiddling

with it in the old days. I

gave it up says G.

Nothing was happening in

my life. They look at one

another and start to laugh.”

Back in the present moment, G’s shack is destroyed in a snowstorm. Sad and G decide to hit the road, heading north. They pass across desolate landscapes, which become increasingly fantastical: eventually, they drive across an ocean, and a volcano, before reaching a glacier. They begin to climb and slip inside the glacier, where they encounter bats “the size of toasters.”

Within the glacier, Sad is surprised to find two old army buddies, CMO and 4NO, who live in a house carved from the ice. CMO is cynical and wisecracking, while 4NO is a prophet, able (in fact compelled) to see five seconds into the future at all times. It is a useless ability that leaves 4NO with "no / present moment not / skinned shaved stained / saturated overrun outraged / by raw data from the / future". He’d rather return to the present "To stand in time with your / back to the future your / face to the past…what a / relief it would be.”

Ida arrives to join the road trip. Ida and Sad have a brief affair. They all head home to the mental hospital where Sad is still a patient. There they stage a play written by 4NO for the entertainment of the other residents. During the performance, a fight breaks out and an elderly patient is hurt. In the aftermath, G receives a message, asking him to call his mother; she is dying.

G, Sad, and Ida hurry to the hospital, where G’s mother lies in a bed "as / big as a speedboat and she / a handful of twigs under / the sheet.” G tells her about the trip and the four of them discuss Ida’s shoes. G plucks a white hair from his mother’s chin, prompting her to ask, “I look / awful don’t I.” G replies: “No, you look / like my Ma.”

She dies suddenly, without warning. "Time passes oh boy," G thinks. "Time / got the jump on me yes / it did." At her funeral, he feels an intimation of new freedom:

“Say a

man has been carrying a

mother on the front of his

life all these years now

she is ripped off now his

life is light as air— should

he believe it?”

G returns to his mother’s house and sorts through her things, grieving deeply: “The / weeping has been arriving / about every seven / minutes. In the days to / come it will grow less.”