I thought I would share this from the afterword, which seems to be available in the audiobook but not ebook.

This short story was inspired by Ovid’s version of the pygmalion myth in The Metamorphoses. MM was disturbed by the deeply misogynistic implications of the pygmalion story.

Pygmalion‘s happy ending is only happy if you accept a number of repulsive ideas. That the only good woman is the one who has no self beyond pleasing a man. The fetishization of female sexual purity. The connection of the snowy ivory with perfection. The elevation of male fantasy over female reality.

MM created the nameless woman. Complex, courageous and clever. Level headed and still sane, after having been locked up for a year. Still loving toward her daughter. This nameless woman is not of Ovid’s world. The sculpturer, Pygmalion, however, is as Ovid made him. MM notes that:

The term Incel wasn’t in wide circulation when I wrote this. But Pygmalion is certainly a prototype. For a millenia there have been men who react with horror and disgust to women’s independence. Men who desire women yet hate them. And who take refuge in fantasies of purity and control. What would it be to live with such a man as your husband? There are too many today who could answer that. But that is the mark of a good source myth. It is water so wide it can reach across centuries.

God. I hope she’s able to write Persephone.