A New York Times/PBS NewsHour Book Club Pick
From award-winning memoirist and critic, and bestselling author of The
Lost: a deeply moving tale of a father and son's transformative journey
in reading--and reliving--Homer's epic masterpiece.
When eighty-one-year-old Jay Mendelsohn decides to enroll in the
undergraduate Odyssey seminar his son teaches at Bard College, the two
find themselves on an adventure as profoundly emotional as it is
intellectual. For Jay, a retired research scientist who sees the world
through a mathematician's unforgiving eyes, this return to the classroom
is his "one last chance" to learn the great literature he'd neglected in
his youth--and, even more, a final opportunity to more fully understand
his son, a writer and classicist. But through the sometimes
uncomfortable months that the two men explore Homer's great work
together--first in the classroom, where Jay persistently challenges his
son's interpretations, and then during a surprise-filled Mediterranean
journey retracing Odysseus's famous voyages--it becomes clear that
Daniel has much to learn, too: Jay's responses to both the text and the
travels gradually uncover long-buried secrets that allow the son to
understand his difficult father at last. As this intricately woven
memoir builds to its wrenching climax, Mendelsohn's narrative comes to
echo the Odyssey itself, with its timeless themes of deception and
recognition, marriage and children, the pleasures of travel and the
meaning of home. Rich with literary and emotional insight, An Odyssey
is a renowned author-scholar's most triumphant entwining yet of personal
narrative and literary exploration.
Named a Best Book of 2017 by NPR, Library Journal, The Christian
Science Monitor, and Newsday
A Kirkus Best Memoir of 2017
Shortlisted for the 2017 Baillie Gifford Prize
