Orestes: and the Lifting of the Family Curse

We are pleased to announce the publication of this important third title from Hazel Marshall. We recently published her second book To Heaven with Dante : A Transpersonal Journey (2022) having previously published the 'Wisdom of the Transpersonal' series which she had so brilliantly Edited: Journey in Depth (2002); Fires of Alchemy (2004); Raincloud of Knowable Things (2008) and Symptom as Symbol (2010).

Ideas can change the world and Hazel Marshall’s new book is about just such an idea. Our hero is bound by honour and family tradition to avenge a past wrong, for this is a tale of vendetta. Long-lasting family feuds are not rare; in his play Romeo and Juliet, Shakespeare wrote of such a case and, as so often, things did not work out well.

Vendettas can also sour relations between tribes and between nations; we need only recall the long-standing conflicts all over the world: ‘past wrongs cannot be forgiven and must never be forgotten’. Vendettas are about revenge and retribution — the situation young Orestes found himself in. Family honour obliged him to avenge his father’s death but in doing so, he laid himself open to retribution for his action. He was in a desperate situation, one without any prospect of a happy ending — that is, until the gods themselves stepped in. The goddess Pallas Athene had a brilliant idea.

She solved Orestes’ difficulties by finding another way for honour to be satisfied; she set up a Court of Justice. Invoking the sense of justice we all carry deep within our hearts, she chose twelve good men and true to hear the evidence presented by both sides, and to weigh that evidence in their hearts. Which case best appealed to their sense of justice?

Until I read the drafts of Hazel’s book, I hadn’t realised just how much we owe to those wise, ancient Greeks. You may find similar gems in this fascinating retelling of a little-known Greek Drama. Frances Aitken.

Printed copies will be available from Thursday 16th May.

Available from us; from bookshops and online outlets throughout the world…

Apart from our own Publishers Edition for the home market, there will eventually be ePub versions for Kindle, iPads, Nooks, etc., also a POD version via Ingrams in the USA, Canada, Australia, South Africa and many more globally.

Click on the cover images below to buy a copy, or for more information, contents list, and reviews.