From the article: "The Song of Achilles, the debut novel by high school Latin and Greek teacher Madeline Miller, answers with a resounding yes. Her Song, which just made the New York Times best-seller list and is in the running for the U.K.'s prestigious Orange Prize, is a wildly romantic retelling of the Trojan War as a story of longtime companions narrated by Patroclus. Miller plays with the historical record as established by Homer; skillfully dodges that which might refute her premise, including Achilles' interest in slave girls and his siring a son, Pyrrhus; and puts a sexy new narrative spin on the ancients that is surprisingly suspenseful. Some of that suspense comes from curiosities, like who will tell the story after Patroclus dies, but most of it comes from the urgency of Miller's storytelling."

"The real Achilles’ heel of this book is tone — one made disastrously worse by the author’s decision to metamorphose an ancient story of heroes into a modern tale of hormones."

The article discusses the career of Madeline Miller, a teacher and author of the book "The Song of Achilles." It comments on Miller's inspiration for her book, her teaching career, and her interest in Classical literature and Latin. Other topics explored include the novel's connection with homosexuality, Miller's academic interest in the story of Achilles from Homer's "Iliad," and keeping teaching and writing separate.

"On a cold, sunny afternoon in March, the novelist Madeline Miller wandered through the Greek and Roman galleries at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, swooning over ancient amphoras and ethereal..."