In this disarmingly matter-of-fact farce, the London-based author's
debut, the gods of Olympus are living in London and running the
world with increasingly diminished powers.The gods have been in
London since 1665, when the Plague caused property values to drop.
They thrived for a while, but by the present day their townhouse is
crumbling and dirty. Now they must conserve their strength to
perform their individual responsibilities for the world's upkeep.
They all also have appropriate jobs with which to while away some
of their endless time - Aphrodite does phone sex, Artemis is a dog
walker, Dionysus runs a nightclub. To get back at Apollo for a
slight, Aphrodite makes her son Eros, who's trying to become a
Christian although he knows Jesus was no god, to shoot the sun god
with a love arrow while he's live on stage filming a pilot called
Apollo's Oracle for the psychic channel. Apollo falls for the least
likely mortal, mousy Alice. A cleaner at the station, Alice is
attending the taping with her friend Neil. Alice and Neil are in
love but too shy to tell each other. Through Hermes's powers Alice
becomes the housekeeper at the gods's house. Lovesick Apollo kisses
her but she rejects him. Apollo has vowed to Styx not to harm
mortals himself, so he manipulates a decrepit Zeus into sending a
bolt of lightning to kill Alice as punishment. Then, wracked with
guilt, Apollo visits Neil to apologize but ends up putting out the
sun as he falls into a swoon. Artemis enlists Neil as a mortal hero
to head with her to the underworld to regain Alice and save the
planet. Phillips nimbly creates a present-day alternative universe
where belief in the true gods has been replaced by a false
Judeo-Christian ethos, and she does a particularly fine job
envisioning an underworld that is neither heaven nor hell but
simply eternal death.Not for the pious, but lots of fun for
everyone else. (Kirkus Reviews)
Being immortal isn't all it's cracked up to be. Life's hard for a
Greek god in the 21st century: nobody believes in you any more,
even your own family doesn't respect you, and you're stuck in a
delapidated hovel in north London with too many siblings and not
enough hot water. But for Artemis (goddess of hunting, professional
dog walker), Aphrodite (goddess of beauty, telephone sex operator)
and Apollo (god of the sun, TV psychic) there's no way out... Until
a meek cleaner and her would-be boyfriend come into their lives,
and turn the world literally upside down. Gods Behaving Badly is
that rare thing, a charming, funny, utterly original first novel
that satisfies the head and the heart.
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