The myth of a marriage

Author will speak about couple at the heart of ‘Fates and Furies’

In the novel “Fates and Furies,” Lancelot “Lotto” Satterwhite loves to tell people about the night he proposed to Mathilde Yoder at a party and that she said “yes” immediately.

An actor turned successful playwright, Lotto enjoys playing the raconteur who embellishes a story to entertain his audience.

Lotto is a narcissist far more interested in being known than knowing more about his 6-foottall wife — whose figure, high cheekbones and plush lips make her an ideal fashion model.

“He loves her. He just takes her for granted. He thinks of her as immutable, created out of something stronger,” said Lauren Groff, the novel’s author, who unfolds the tale of this 24year marriage from the husband’s perspective and then from Mathilde’s viewpoint.

“Fates and Furies” was a finalist for the 2015 National Book Award and the 2015 Kirkus Prize. The novelist, 38, of Gainesville, Fla., speaks Monday at 7:30 p.m. in Oakland’s Carnegie Music Hall.

As with many marriages, all appears well. Wearing a perpetual smile, Mathilde hosts successful parties, handles the couple’s finances and secretly revises her husband’s plays while he sleeps.

Some of the novel’s characters serve as a Greek chorus partly because Ms. Groff was deeply influenced by “Mythology,” a classic text still used in schools.

“Edith Hamilton’s, ‘ Mythology’ was a huge book for me. It blew my mind. It’s a classic,” Ms. Groff said in a telephone interview.

Myths, she added, are “a way of having a private language that links you to lost generations. It’s almost like knowing religious stories. It’s a tissue or fabric of storytelling underlying