Red Doc

Red Doc> is a book by classicist and poet Anne Carson, which combines poetry, prose, and drama. Published in 2013, it resumes the story of her 1998 verse novel Autobiography of Red.

Red Doc> was reviewed by Kathryn Schulz as,

a sequel of sorts to Autobiography of Red, which was a sequel of sorts to a poem by Stesichoros […]. In Greek myth, a monster named Geryon lived on a red island and tended a herd of coveted red cattle; slaying the monster and stealing the cattle was the tenth of the twelve labors of Herakles […]. The tale was set down by Hesiod and others almost 3,000 years ago […]. What Red Doc> is greater than is the sum of its parts. This is Carson's obsession, and her gift: to make meaning from the fragments we get, which are also all we get -- of time, of the past, of each other. It doesn't last, of course; the arrow of gravity, like the arrow of time, points only in one direction. Still, for a moment, she gets it all to hang together up there, the joy made keener by the coming fall. Sad but great: In the end it seemed to me that Carson had found the proper name for everything -- her character, this book, this life.[1]

Red Doc> was awarded the 2014 Griffin Poetry Prize.[2]