Chapter 11 of “A Visit from the Good Squad” features the character of Ted, a disenchanted art history professor, conducting a halfhearted search for his wayward niece, Sasha, in Italy. Sasha had fled her home with her then-boyfriend, the drummer of a band, and embarked on a skein of escapades beginning in Japan and culminating in Italy. Sasha’s parents perforce enlist her uncle to venture to Italy and retrieve her. While in Italy, Ted defers his duty in favor of exploring the country’s art and architecture before fortuitously encountering Sasha. Their resultant interplay is one of farcical proportions.
Throughout the chapter, Ted recurrently invokes the statues of Orpheus and Eurydice that he sees in Italy. The legend surrounding these two figures chronicles Orpheus’s failed attempt to retrieve his wife, Eurydice, from the underworld. Following Eurydice’s death, Orpheus ventures to the underworld to supplicate Hades for the reincarnation of his wife. Hades agrees on the condition that Orpheus must not look at his wife while they depart the underworld until they reach the light. Orpheus, delighted by Hades’ mercy, relents to the condition and proceeds to vacate the underworld with Eurydice. During their exit, Orpheus becomes dubious of his wife’s truly being behind him, believing that Hades had deceived him. Mere steps before the light, Orpheus turns around in incredulity only to discover the shadow of his wife whisking back to the realm of the dead, never to be retrieved again. Dejected by this misgiving, Orpheus wishes death upon himself to be eternally united with his love, a wish realized by Zeus, who strikes him with a lightning bolt lest Orpheus divulges the nature of the underworld to mankind.
“Uncovering what is implicit,” which I will designate as the Iceberg Theory (a name I didn’t actually coin; search it up if you’re so inclined), is the agency I used to shed light upon this chapter. Ted’s quest to recover his niece parallels Orpheus’s quest to recover his wife. Ted’s scouring of Italy’s slums for Sasha introduces him to dissolute youths, with the slums exemplifying the underworld and the youths the dead. The woman Ted bribes into leading him to Sasha alludes to Hades’ acquiescence to liberate Eurydice. These likenesses are juxtaposed by a stark contrast between Ted’s mission and Orpheus’s: upon glancing at Eurydice, she vanishes; upon averting gaze from Sasha, she vanishes. While Egan sought to effect the Greek legend in a modern setting, she markedly distinguishes her iteration from its antecedent.
