In the tumultuous aftermath of the Trojan War, a young man battles to
save his home and his inheritance. Setting out to find his father, he
ends up discovering himself.
Telemachus's father, Odysseus, went off to war before he was born...and
never came back. Aged sixteen, Telemachus finds himself abandoned, his
father's house overrun with men pursuing his beautiful mother, Penelope,
and devouring the family's wealth. He determines to leave Ithaca, his
island home, and find the truth. What really happened to his father? Was
Odysseus killed on his journey home from the war? Or might he, one day,
return to take his revenge?
Telemachus's journey takes him across the landscape of bronze-age Greece
in the aftermath of the great Trojan war. Veterans hide out in the
hills. Chieftains, scarred by war, hoard their treasure in luxurious
palaces. Ithaca re-tells Homer's famous poem, The Odyssey, from the
point of view of Odysseus' resourceful and troubled son, describing
Odysseus's extraordinary voyage from Troy to the gates of hell, and
Telemachus's own journey from boyhood to the desperate struggle that
wins back his home...and his father.