Argonaut Rose: the Archaeology (Hardcover)

Wakoski's autobiographical Argonautica employs the myth of quest to discover meaning in personal history.

Here, following the successes of Medea the Sorceress (1991), Jason the Sailor (1993) and The Emerald City of Las Vegas (1995), this crowning volume in The Archaeology of Movies and Books returns to the epic journey of search and discovery. Retracing "all the footsteps I've left behind me", the narrator remembers all the "Jasons" in her life -- absent fathers, irresistible lovers -- "those betrayers as I saw them, who left me, who left me; for how can we hate the person we want, so much, to love us?"

Here, sexuality as "the true voice / of the body, not its great deceiver" remains nonetheless the constant ground of deception and self-deceiving. Desire and betrayal, the gold of youth and the silver of age, intuition and wisdom intermingle in a rich thematic weave.