Karl V. Eiker
Star of Macedon
G.P. Putnam's Sons, c1957 (no ISBN?)
 

This book which was published both in hardback and in a cheap pulp paperback version belongs to the heyday of historical fiction in the US.  Just a year before, United Artists had released their historical frolic with a young (but not young enough) and wigged Richard Burton playing Alexander.  Thankfully, Eiker's book is much better.

It follows Gyges, a fictional personality in the entourage of Alexander.  Like Tarr, Eiker adheres to the "rule" that one should avoid writing directly about famous historical personalities, so all of his central characters are either inventions are little known figures in the history of Alexander.  Important historical characters like Philip, Alexander and Ptolemy are less actors in the drama than reasons for the characters' actions.  As such, this is more of a period piece, a story about the time of Alexander than a story about Alexander.  Even Tarr, despite using two invented characters as her primary protagonists, wrote a story about Alexander.

Nonetheless, it's an interesting tale, if one grants certain caveats.  First, like Renault, Eiker wrote before the recent discoveries about ancient Macedonia.  As such, he describes a grey, dull barbaric Pella that bears no resemblance to the real Pella with its gorgeous river-stone mosaics in the houses, sizable agora, and monolithic palace structure.  Eiker describes Pella as Demosthenes portrayed it, not as archaeology has revealed it to have been.

Eiker also takes certain liberties with history, such as the Boukephalas episode, but since he uses these for his own narrative purposes and makes them work for him, one can grant him the license. Otherwise, his history is fairly well researched as long as one remembers when he was writing, as mentioned above.  There are errors, but he certainly read more than a few biographies.  Still, his picture of Alexander may irritate some readers who prefer a more heroic conqueror, since his Alexander is anything but sympathetic.  Yet Eiker's portrayal is not without support among historians.  His Alexander is Ernst Badian's, not W. W. Tarn's.

A few other oddities about the book:  the large chunk of the action takes place in Philip's reign or the early years of Alexander's.  The end of Alexander's conquests are summarized rapidly in the last quarter or so of the novel.  This has something to do with who his primary protagonist is.  Also, there is a distinctly Christian subtext throughout, and Jews play prominent roles since Jews were as close as Eiker could get to Christians, at the date of his novel's setting.  This is intrusive, but again, one must remember when he was writing.

Yet by far the most annoying aspect of the book is the gratuitous lewdness and overwrought romance.  Sex is used not for legitimate movement of the plot or to further characterization, but simply to titillate (and sell books).  Though not nearly as graphic as sex in novels of the 80s and 90s, it is far less central than the sex scenes found in Frank Conroy's beautiful Body and Soul or N. Scott Momaday's Pulitzer winner, The House of Dawn.  As such, Eiker's novel has an adolescent pulp fiction quality which, to my mind, undermines what might otherwise have been decent historical fiction of the period.