Lyon ponders sequel to The Golden Mean

Annabel Lyon's lauded literary journey into Aristotle's life may not be over.

The B.C. author, who won the $25,000 Rogers Writers' Trust Fiction Prize on Tuesday for The Golden Mean, says she already has a plan fora sequel.

The Golden Mean, written in the voice of Aristotle, relateshiseffortto tutorthe young Alexander the Great, a teenager more fond of war and action than the balance counselled by the Greek philosopher.

The follow-up to her hitnovel hasn't been started and is likely "years away,"Lyon says. But if shedoes writeit, she would likely set it at the end of Aristotle's life and write from the point of view of his daughter, Pythias, when she was about 16.

"I've done the man's world and I feel like that would be a chance to do the women's world," Lyon, who lives in New Westminster, B.C., said in an interview at the Writers' Trust awards.

"That same world but from the women's point of view, bringing in a lot more of the mythology and the religion that we associate with the ancient Greeks that Aristotle deliberately turned away from, being the great rationalist that he was."

The Golden Mean was also nominated for the Scotiabank Giller Prize and the Governor General's Literary Award.

Anafterword in the novelincludes Aristotle's actual will in which hewrites that when Pythias "shall be grown up she shall be given in marriage to Nicanor," who Lyon said was her cousin. At the time the will was written, Pythias was just four.

Aristotle's will makes it seem as if he was "so concerned for her, so concerned that she be taken care of," added the author, who studied philosophy and creative writing in school.

"But then, from our perspective looking back, it's so brutal that he's picking someone for her. And what were her opinions about it?"

Lyon said "nothing is known" about Pythias beyond what's written in Aristotle's will.

She presumes Pythias came from a good gene pool and was bright, "but she may not have been literate," she said. "Women at the time weren't normally educated.

"And of course, after his death she's just gone from the historical record nobody knows anything about her so she's interesting to me."