From AudioFile
In this fictional "memoir", Erica Jong brings the exotic Greek poet Sappho to life. Jong's passionate voice rivals that of Sappho herself. In the telling of the story, Jong also brings a good deal of knowledge of the gods and goddesses worshipped in early Greece. Jong's voice changes as each character contributes his or her part in the telling of Sappho's memoir. Not to be missed by those who have whispered Sappho's poems in moments of desire. R.S.E. © AudioFile 2004, Portland, Maine-- Copyright © AudioFile, Portland, Maine


Susan Cheever
If Odysseus had been a woman, this is the journey he might have taken.


Kirkus Reviews, 1 March 2003
[H]ighly entertaining....One of Jong's most enjoyable books.

FROM THE PUBLISHER

"Sappho's Leap is a journey back 2,600 years to inhabit the mind of the greatest love poet the world has ever known. At the age of fourteen, Sappho is seduced by the beautiful poet Alcacus, plots with him to overthrow the dictator of the island, and is caught and married off to a repellent older man in hopes that matrimony will keep her out of trouble. Instead, this unhappy union starts her off on a series of amorous adventures, taking her from Delphi to Egypt, and even to the Land of the Amazons and the shadowy realm of Hades." "Throughout her travels, Sappho gives birth to and loses a daughter, becomes the most famous singer of the ancient world, and learns to understand the forces that have shaped her life." Complemented by Erica Jong's new translations of Sappho's fragments, as well as nine of Jong's own poems about the epic poet who shaped all our understandings of poetic verse, Sappho's Leap is not to be missed. Fearless, heroic, yet full of vulnerability, Jong's Sappho is one of her most unforgettable and exuberant heroines.

FROM THE CRITICS

USA Today

In Sappho's Leap, Jong creates an epic history of Sappho patterned after Homer's Odyssey and improvises heroic adventures and assorted sexual liaisons. Jong slips into Sappho's skin, delivering glib commentary on sexual and individual freedom, romantic love, power and theology. — Jackie Pray

The Washington Post

Jong's Sappho ("a cross between Madonna and Sylvia Plath," as the author describes her in an afterword) is the object of a wager between two gods who bicker throughout the book: Zeus, an obnoxious guy, directly from Mars ("At this point we need a rape or a war. A rape and a war! Let's go!"), and Aphrodite, snappish but confident ("This woman will be a myth for three millennia if you let me finish her story"). — Katherine A. Powers

The New Yorker

What if the poet Sappho had paused to tell the story of her life in the moment before her legendary leap from the cliff? It's a neat premise, and the grab bag of brilliant bits that is all we know of Sappho's life might, in defter hands, have been fashioned into shimmering whole cloth. Instead, we get a windy, chaotic tale, which owes more to Bob Guccione's "Caligula" than to classical scholarship (sample chapter headings: "Aesop at the Orgy," "The Binding of the Babe"). Jong can't resist turning Sappho into a sandal-shod Isadora Wing, careering from one rapt, cartoonish embrace to another while occasionally crooning verses that as an imitation of Sappho's ravishing, elusive poetry are hopelessly inadequate.

Library Journal