The author's day job is teaching high school Latin and Greek
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At that point in Miller's book, it seems unfathomable that the cosseting Patroclus will end up in Book 16 of The Iliad gaffing Trojans while disguised as Achilles. But Miller pulls it off, matching plot points while plausibly shifting relationships and motivations. Briseis, the woman Achilles and Agamemnon tussled over, becomes the gal pal, someone to hang out and go herb picking with, while Achilles' mother Thetis despises Patroclus so much, she wants his name lost to history. Her disapproval becomes Song's haunting refrain, second only to Patroclus' despair as Achilles is ruined by hubris and bloodshed. These nice boys in love grow up during the war, where Patroclus tries to pretend that Achilles' bedtime accounts of the Trojans he killed are fiction: "As if it were dark figures on an urn he spoke of instead of men."
Miller does the opposite, bringing those dark figures back to life, making them men again, and while she's at it, uses her passionate companion piece to The Iliad as a subtle swipe at today's ongoing debate over gay marriage. Talk about updating the classics.