An Odyssey: A Father, a Son, and an Epic

<b>From award-winning memoirist and critic, and bestselling author of <i>The Lost:</i> a deeply moving tale of a father and son's transformative journey in reading--and reliving--Homer's epic masterpiece.</b> <br><br>When eighty-one-year-old Jay Mendelsohn decides to enroll in the undergraduate <i>Odyssey</i> 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 &quot;one last chance&quot; 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 <i>Odyssey</i> 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, <i>An Odyssey </i>is a renowned author-scholar's most triumphant entwining yet of personal narrative and literary exploration.