The Gospel of Loki

April 6, 2015
Harris (Chocolat) reinterprets the Norse Völuspá (which she incorporates into her story as “The Prophecy of the Oracle”) from the point of view of Loki, evoking the voice of a narcissistic celebrity memoir while retaining a timeless folktale aesthetic. Loki emerges as Wildfire from the realm of Chaos to rescue, trick, and infuriate Odin and the inhabitants of Asgard. The troublemaker antihero narrates the personality flaws of the gods, gives post-facto justifications for his own actions, and admonishes the reader to “never trust anyone.” But underneath the braggadocio and wit runs a story with psychological meat, that of the permanent outsider craving the comfort of approval, seeking revenge on those who disrespect him, and trying to save his own skin as he ponders the relationships among free will, forced obligations, and the inevitable. Those familiar with the traditional stories will find Harris’s approach knowledgeable and respectful but fresh enough to be much more than a modernized retelling, while readers without the background will find this version of Loki an easy enough storyteller to follow for the first time.

May 15, 2015
The trickster gods of mythology are always memorable, and Harris shows why in her new book. From our world's creation out of the corpse of a titan star to its collapse, Harris retells the full arc of Norse cosmology: a violent and poignant world in which even the gods fear pain and death. But she does so via the cynical, self-aggrandizing humor of the ancient world's most famous trickster. Loki's wit and constant subversions reframe stories of Thor, Odin, dwarfs, and ice giants into a modern, detached examination of faith, mortality, power, and anything else that either intrigues or disgusts a demonic master of deception. Those with a passion for mythology will no doubt enjoy the book more than readers who don't, but Harris' accessible, clever writing and familiar restructuring of the classic stories make this a worthwhile read in itself.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2015, American Library Association.)