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Goat Song

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ARISTON THE SPARTAN: LOVER, WARRIOR, PASSIONATE ADVENTURER
Conceived in brutal lust, Ariston was both blessed and cursed with a beauty that brought suffering and death to everyone he loved. Proud women fought with harlots for his embraces. Men followed him blindly where he led. But Ariston was himself slave to an imperious destiny, driven relentlessly toward a gate few men would dare to face...

This is the story of a man who rises from a boyhood in the perfumed brothels of Greece to become one of the greatest warrior heroes of the ancient world.

457 pages, Mass Market Paperback

First published January 1, 1967

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About the author

Frank Yerby

123 books115 followers
Born in Augusta, Georgia to Rufus Garvin Yerby, an African American, and Wilhelmina Smythe, who was caucasian. He graduated from Haines Normal Institute in Augusta and graduated from Paine College in 1937. Thereafter, Yerby enrolled in Fisk University where he received his Master's degree in 1938. In 1939, Yerby entered the University of Chicago to work toward his doctorate but later left the university. Yerby taught briefly at Florida A&M University and at Southern University in Baton Rouge.

Frank Yerby rose to fame as a writer of popular fiction tinged with a distinctive southern flavor. In 1946 he became the first African-American to publish a best-seller with The Foxes of Harrow. That same year he also became the first African-American to have a book purchased for screen adaptation by a Hollywood studio, when 20th Century Fox optioned Foxes. Ultimately the book became a 1947 Oscar-nominated film starring Rex Harrison and Maureen O'Hara. Yerby was originally noted for writing romance novels set in the Antebellum South. In mid-century he embarked on a series of best-selling novels ranging from the Athens of Pericles to Europe in the Dark Ages. Yerby took considerable pains in research, and often footnoted his historical novels. In all he wrote 33 novels.

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5 stars
105 (32%)
4 stars
114 (35%)
3 stars
71 (22%)
2 stars
21 (6%)
1 star
10 (3%)
Displaying 1 - 30 of 31 reviews
Profile Image for Sarah Stegall.
Author 27 books19 followers
June 12, 2012
Greece has always been a problem for Western readers; on the one hand, she is seen as the mother of our Western civilization. On the other hand, we don't actually share many of her values. Ancient Greek attitudes towards women, sexuality, and personal morality are pretty much foreign to us now. Yet Greek myths, concepts and even words permeate our culture. The result is sometimes a jarring surprise when readers run smack up against the frank homosexuality of ancient Greece, the treatment of women as chattel even in the "enlightened" democracy of Perikles, or the stunning discrepancies in the way different levels of society were treated. Frank Yerby takes his readers on a fascinating tour of what is really an alien culture, a world as distant and foreign to Western readers, in many ways, as Asia in the fourth century BCE.

Ariston, the hero, journeys from the severe, highly conservative Sparta of his birth to the liberal, but ultimately corrupt Athens of antique fame. Along the way, we get a glimpse of the competing schools of politics, philosophy and warfare. Like most of Yerby's other heroes, we get a lot of his internal dialogue, setting up a sense of intimacy between Ariston and the reader. We see his youthful mistakes, his shattered dreams, his constant guilt. We see a man who possesses that rarest of things, a soul with a conscience. Like all men with a conscience, he lands in a lot of trouble on its account.

Yerby was always concerned with two primary relationships: man and woman, and man and God. He gives equal time to both considerations in a long book spanning Ariston's life. Ariston's physical beauty makes him a sexual target for both men and women, and Yerby does not flinch in showing the pervasive homosexuality of ancient Greece and Sparta. Nor does he hide his own personal repugnance for it: time and again Yerby characterizes homosexual characters as corrupt, deviant, evil, etc. Yerby also emphasizes Ariston's internal journey, his search for answers to age old questions: do the gods exist? why do they permit evil? do they have it in for me?

Yerby's characters are always subtle, complex, volatile. Ariston's allies in the early part of the book sometimes turn on him later. Enemies evolve into allies. Relationships shift and change as he goes through life. Yerby is never simple, but he is always interesting, and Ariston's story, for all its remoteness in time and space, still has something to say to modern readers.
Profile Image for Louis Muñoz.
349 reviews187 followers
August 5, 2025
1975(ish): 4 stars; 2025: 2 stars.

Frank Yerby was a prolific and very successful mid-20th c. writer, and several of his books were adapted by Hollywood. I first came upon him when I was about 14-15, and within the next few years I read through at least 5-6 of his historical fiction titles. I remembered liking "Goat Song" a lot so when it came time to add it to GR, I rated the book as 4 stars.

I've always been interested in re-reading some of Yerby's books and getting to some of the ones I'd missed all those years ago. This summer, I received this one and "An Odor of Sanctity" via Interlibrary Loan, and my experience re-reading these two books has been extremely disappointing. I found the dialogue stilted, the plotting/pacing tedious and awkward, the characters unbelievable and unlikeable, the level of violence extreme, his treatment of women heavy-handed, and the books overlong. Worst of all was the homophobia, especially in "Goat Song." It's funny, because as a young gay teenager I picked up on some of that, but I think I was so grateful to find homosexuality in books that I unconsciously gave the negative representations a pass. Fifty years later, sorry, can't do.

Ultimately, I'm grateful to have read Frank Yerby's book as they helped spark a lifelong interest in Historical Fiction and also taught me a lot about the various historical eras into which Yerby's research and books delved. And not for nothing, it's awesome that such a popular author was also African-American during a time when that might have counted against his becoming so popular. It's unfortunate that coming back to his novels was not a great experience.
Profile Image for Rob.
280 reviews20 followers
April 18, 2009
Came upon this in the school library. I think they knew not what they had. This book completely changed my understanding of Ancient Greece, Sparta and Athens in particular. Yerby brings Socrates, for example, startlingly to life in a way I find wholly compatible with what Plato gives us of the man.

Yes, it's stuffed with sex and violence, but so was Ancient Greece. This seems many cuts above Yerby's more typical novels, many of which I couldn't make myself slog through. If you're a fan of Frank Miller's 300, you really ought to give this a chance, too.
6 reviews
December 6, 2024
Having recently read Georg Lukacs' The Historical Novel (1937), I couldn't help seeing the applicability of his criticisms about "modernizing" the psychology of the characters in historical novels to Frank Yerby's Goat Song (1966).

To quote Lukacs: Most historical novelists "believe that the spatial and temporal manifestations of human feelings and ideas are simply a matter of externals and costume, while the feelings and ideas . . . may be transferred backwards to any age without serious alteration." Actually, Yerby seems to have done the extensive research in Greek history and literature that the flap copy credits him with. (Our hero even gets mini-lectures from Socrates and Euripides; celebrity cameos like this are usually a bad sign.) Even so, I would say this is largely "a matter of externals."

His research provides some interesting and, needless to say, lurid background information. ("A satyr play, one of those outrageously obscene farces that all poets were forced to add to their entries in the festivals in order to appease the Athenian mob's bottomless appetite for filfth." Did the Athenians really think of their satyr plays as "filth"?) Still the book reads an awful lot like contemporary (early 1960s) USA values wrapped in Greek costume. It would only be a slight exaggeration to say that his unbelievably handsome, sensitive, sexually conflicted hero Aniston, when we first encounter him at age seventeen, is essentially Tom Lee of Tea and Sympathy transposed back into ancient Greece, with current US attitudes, prejudices and fears of a 17-year-old American "innocent" triggered by sex practices that were matter-of-fact and not cause for worries about one's "manliness" to the Greeks of the period.

Aniston is disgusted at having to service "perfumed and lisping catamites" in the male brothel where he is involuntarily employed. Luckily, he is directed to Parthenope, a beautiful, gentle, refined whore "in the luxurious upper ranks of her delicate trade" (sounds rather like Deborah Kerr in Tea and Sympathy) who gives him courage to flee the male brothel and get his manliness back. There is quite a bit more along this line, but you get the idea.

This is one of those books that is an entertaining read without being very good. If only the author were a little less earnest (and not so commercial-lurid) Goat Song would rate as a camp classic, right up there alongside The Young Visiters, Zuleika Dobson, and Brigid Brophy's The Finishing Touch and In Transit. Among the book's many camp lines, my favorite, on page 106, is: "Forgive me, will you, Mother? I didn't know it was you. After all, it's hard to tell one porna [whore] from another in the dark."
Profile Image for Frank.
2,102 reviews30 followers
August 16, 2012
This is the first Frank Yerby novel I have read in many years. Back in the 1970s, I read several of his historical novels and remember enjoying most of them. This one takes place in Ancient Greece prior to and during the Peloponnesian Wars. The hero of the novel is Ariston who was raised a Spartan, was sold as a slave to Athens and then was adopted by a wealthy Athenian. The storyline could have been a Greek tragedy written by Sophocles or Euripides. In fact both of these playwrights play a role in the novel along with Socrates, Plato, Alkibiades, and other notables of classical Greece. The themes of the book include politics and the ideals of democracy (evidently opposed by Socrates), war, love and sexual orientation. I wasn't quite sure how Yerby really felt about homosexuality. The book is full of descriptions of male love and at the first of the novel, Ariston appeared to be leaning in that direction. Later he is sold as a slave to work in a male brothel and his attitude toward homosexuals takes a 180. Anyway, overall this was a good glimpse into life in ancient Greece. I sometimes got a little confused as to who all the players were with the Greek names, etc. But Yerby obviously did his research on this one and I would recommend it.
Profile Image for John.
1,777 reviews45 followers
February 11, 2018
I am so glad to be done with this book and now not too excited about reading the other 4 Yerby books on my to read list. This was in my opinion, not an area Yerby knew very well. ONLY MY OPINION. Too soap opera like, perhaps he wanted to shock the reader but much of it made me laugh. I just looked at the dates of this reading to find it was only 4 days, if i had not looked and been asked, I would have said it took two weeks to read.
Profile Image for John Nevola.
Author 4 books15 followers
September 10, 2012
Told through the eyes of a young Greek boy, Yerby takes the reader on an odyssey and adventure spanning the cultural extremes of ancient Greece.

Ariston, a beautiful young boy starts life as a Spartan, is captured and winds up a slave in Athens. This literary device allows Yerby to depict the contrasting philosophies between ancient Sparta and Athens. He immerses the reader in the culture of the time with uncannily accurate history.

Sold into slavery and used as a male prostitute, Ariston eventually wins his freedom to pursue his own dreams. But the journey is heart wrenching and compelling and the reader is drawn into the daunting lives of the protagonists.
Very well done, especially for fans of ancient Greece.
Profile Image for John.
19 reviews
September 10, 2008
a pretty good historical-fiction book on ancient Greece
Profile Image for Jon Hollihan.
44 reviews13 followers
January 28, 2022
Your looks define your life. Good Looking people have advantages in life. Beautiful people have more. Ugly people have no chance for happiness in life. And the Old Gods laugh at humans who don't realize their choices decide their fate in most cases. Not sacrifices or prayers at temples or statues. And most people are one decision away from being evil.

Yerby really did his research into Ancient Greek & Spartan history. The main character, Ariston, has friendships with many great Greek philosophers and soldiers of Greece, Sparta and Persia. The host of Olympian Gods are referenced throughout and the geography of Greece and surrounding sea present a challenge to the reader to reference maps and place names. Missed opportunity for the publisher to include maps and place names in the book endpapers.

A larger novel than Yerby's other works. We follow the beautiful Ariston's life through his beginning to end with his many hardships and failures balanced by successes. Looking for love and honoring friendships with self-imposed morals while worrying what the gods will think and how they will act to ruin or reward. A great novel, with lots of debauchery & deviancy which could be off-putting to some readers. Those acts are referenced as what happened but not described in any detail. Tame by today's standards, though.

Not my favorite Yerby novel, and earned a 4.5 ranking based on the story and historical references and details of Greek & Spartan life.
Profile Image for Fred Kohn.
1,378 reviews27 followers
September 30, 2017
Found this beauty at a library sale for two bucks. I was intrigued by the title, which I recognized as a play on the English word "tragedy." The book really brought ancient Greece to life.
Profile Image for Tara Hall.
Author 88 books449 followers
March 17, 2013
This book was thoroughly depressing, though very well written. I liked the main character, Ariston, but if I'd known this was a Greek tragedy, I'd probably not have read it. I also will say there is a lot of violence in the book (one woman is beaten to death, another ripped limb from limb, etc). Sexual violence is also the norm, with Ariston being sold into slavery as a catamite at one point. I'd be fine with violence and tragedy, but as soon as Ariston got a break, he was pushed back into the muck by the fates. Even the ending was awful, with Ariston beginning a book...which the last sentence says does not survive, save the title page. Grim reading to rival the book Gandalf finds telling of the dwarf slaughter in Moria in the book LOTR Part I, in short.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
Profile Image for casey.
16 reviews4 followers
April 5, 2020
“And I—I’m all that?” Theoris said. “All those beautiful, terrible things?”
“Yes, child, you are,” the poet said.

“She hears then the eerie echo booming back from all the hollow halls, and shivered as with sudden cold.
‘Ariston—‘ she whispered, ‘what’s that awful noise?’
‘The gods’ laughter—and my own.’”

This book would’ve been a lot more enjoyable if Yerby hadn’t inserted some of his controversial views, which is why it gets 2.5 stars instead of four. Looking past his views, it was an interesting read that gives you a look into the past.
Profile Image for Louis.
234 reviews5 followers
January 18, 2020
Goat Song shows an interesting insight into Spartan and Athenian Ancient Greece. I am glad that I read it for the bits I learnt but I did find it a bit of a slog to get through. The character's, especially Ariston (may be spelt wrong I had an audio version), the main one, you really identified with and was well formed, but scenes where excitement or shock could be raised, they were moved over or omitted (some of that might have been the time when the book was published). Other scenes were drawn out and quite frankly boring - I did consider giving up around the 60% mark, but glad I persevered.
Profile Image for Lindsay.
132 reviews16 followers
September 16, 2016
Awful and homophobic. The views about sexuality (and likely everything else) in this novel are in no way representative of ancient Greece. I read this nearly two decades ago, but the revulsion I felt in reading it has stayed with me. I hope people take this book with a grain of salt and don't mistake it for a historical account of the times.
Profile Image for Margareth8537.
1,757 reviews32 followers
June 3, 2013
Read this when it came out originally and still found it very moving on a re-reading. Yerby wrote a modern book with the elements of Greek tragedy. Ariston has no control over his destiny, just as Oedipus faced a terrible fate.
Profile Image for Megan.
1,675 reviews21 followers
February 16, 2016
High marks for history and breadth of knowledge, slightly lower marks for characters and pacing. Definitely an intense read at times, and might have been better for me if I hadn't already read a book that I liked better on the same subject.
Profile Image for Zatae Fraser Monfet.
22 reviews
October 3, 2018
The writer really captured life as it was in Ancient Greece. It was educational while entertaining with a good amount of sex, passion and violence.
Profile Image for Angela Carter.
86 reviews1 follower
March 4, 2021
A novel of Ancient Greece as told from the perspective of the young, beautiful, Ariston. This book is exceptionally written, and one for the ages.
Profile Image for Shawnzizl.
5 reviews2 followers
August 20, 2022
A story of changing morals and stripped justice, lovely but cruel, just yet tortursome. I enjoyed an new era and hope to find the odyssey next 👀… wink wink
Profile Image for Ryl.
64 reviews56 followers
November 22, 2024
If you're going to be disgustingly homophobic, I suggest you choose another time period to write about than Ancient Greece.
9 reviews
September 11, 2025
Odd but I enjoyed it. Stories of unrequited love are always hard. Tough lives our characters lead.
Profile Image for Vivien Noelle.
116 reviews4 followers
June 10, 2021
Klappentext:

Die Geschichte eines farbigen Jazzmusikers und seiner aufregenden Begegnung in Paris mit einem schönen weißen Südstaaten-Mädchen. Romantisch und bittersüß, zuweilen auch gewalttätig, ist diese Geschichte einer ungewöhnlichen Liebe, deren Protagonisten nicht nur ihre persönlichen Konflikte zu überwinden haben, sondern in einer an Spannungen reichen, komplexen Welt bestehen müssen, die ihnen nichts an Widerständen erspart.
Yerby hat mit zwingender Ehrlichkeit einen aktionsreichen Roman voller Kraft, Phantasie und sensibler Einsicht geschrieben, dessen Wahrhaftigkeit den Leser nicht aus seinem Bann läßt.
Profile Image for Nicki.
41 reviews1 follower
August 11, 2016
I first read this book MANY years ago as an adolescent and found it to be riveting. The quick pace of the book drew me in and maintained interest as the story of a young Spartan-turned-Greek slave unfolded. The main character Ariston experiences homosexuality and class-status, his life is influenced by the politics, philosophy, and gender inequalities of Greece and as a historical novel mirroring these elements I still find it intriguing.
Overall, it is an interesting peek into the Greek era. Yerby keeps it interesting and the characters are likable.
Profile Image for H.L. Gibson.
Author 1 book8 followers
September 7, 2021
Frank Yerby didn't hold back when writing Goat Song. Rather, he used his extensive research to present Greece in all her debauched glory such as it was. Mildly interesting story, fast paced, no real attachment to the characters. Left me wondering why any culture would embrace anything that came out of Greece.
Profile Image for Susan.
129 reviews4 followers
October 1, 2012
I couldn't finish it. I think I read about half and decided to give up. The history of Athens and Sparta is interesting though, the culture and society. Maybe a shorter book?
Profile Image for Teri Cooper.
138 reviews3 followers
January 22, 2014
This book was an absolute corker. Gripping, hilarious, shocking and illuminating. Hard to find, but if you manage to track it down, read it!
Profile Image for Cindra.
569 reviews40 followers
June 18, 2015
Have read & reread this book over the years. Great insight into Spartan & Greek history w/plenty of love, lust & drama. Even my hubbie the hardcore Louis L'Amour fan liked this one.
Displaying 1 - 30 of 31 reviews

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