Marital cheating continues to be one of the beloved topics of literary fiction writers, to the point one must wonder what new there is to say on the subject. Hunter provides something new on the topic. Centering her narrative of an affair on the figure of the harpy, Hunter provides the reader with a route through the rage that comes with an affair and the secrets that we are asked to unsuccessfully keep in the aftermath. 

Early in her life, Lucy becomes obsessed with harpies to the point she studies them in pursuit of a Ph.D., which she abandons in favor of raising her children. Harpies are depicted as cruel and violent, so a lot of questions can be raised over what would make a child be drawn to such violent figures. But there is also empowerment in female rage, and this power is what she finds in herself after she learns of her husband's affair. She becomes a harpy, torturing him for what he has done (consensually). 

While Hunter does bring a new angle, I am tired of reading essentially the same plot and the same internal monologue about the hurt/battered/scorned woman and what she does afterward. I want fewer narratives about the wrongs men have done to women and more about how women are making things better for themselves. Sexism and patriarchy will never cease to control women's lives and to turn the world against us, but this is also one of the only narratives of women's lives presented in fiction, especially literary fiction. There is more to women than the things men have done to them.