Who wrote the 2001 novel The Minotaur Takes a Cigarette Break?

Steven Sherrill wrote the 2001 novel The Minotaur Takes a Cigarette Break.

The novel reimagines the Minotaur as a lonely survivor living in the modern American South. Rather than retelling the entire Theseus story in an ancient setting, Sherrill follows the creature’s ordinary routines, memories, work, and attempts to connect with other people. Its title deliberately places a mythic figure in an unexpectedly mundane situation.

The book is therefore a modern literary adaptation rather than an ancient source for the myth. It explores alienation and identity through a character whose body and reputation separate him from ordinary society. The Minotaur’s confinement continues, but the setting is no longer literally the Cretan Labyrinth.

Readers sometimes confuse this novel with Mary Renault’s The King Must Die, another modern work involving Theseus. Renault’s book retells Theseus’s life, while Sherrill’s novel centers on the Minotaur after the classical myth.