Description:

A BRILLIANT AND BEGUILING REIMAGINING OF ONE OF OUR GREATEST MYTHS BY A GIFTED YOUNG WRITER

Zachary Mason’s brilliant and beguiling debut novel, The Lost Books of the Odyssey, reimagines Homer’s classic story of the hero Odysseus and his long journey home after the fall of Troy. With brilliant prose, terrific imagination, and dazzling literary skill, Mason creates alternative episodes, fragments, and revisions of Homer’s original that taken together open up this classic Greek myth to endless reverberating interpretations. The Lost Books of the Odyssey is punctuated with great wit, beauty, and playfulness; it is a daring literary page-turner that marks the emergence of an extraordinary new talent.

**

From Publishers Weekly

Starred Review. Mason's fantastic first novel, a deft reimagining of Homer's Odyssey, begins with the story as we know it before altering the perspective or fate of the characters in subsequent short story–like chapters. Legendary moments of myth are played differently throughout, as when Odysseus forgoes the Trojan horse, or when the Cyclops—here a gentle farmer—is blinded by Odysseus while he burgles the Cyclops's cave. Mason's other life—as a computer scientist—informs some chapters, such as The Long Way Back in which Daedalus's labyrinth ensnares Theseus in a much different way. Part of what makes this so enjoyable is the firm grasp Mason has on the source material; the footnotes double as humorous asides while reminding readers who aren't familiar with the original that, for instance, Eumaios is the swineherd who sheltered Odysseus when he first returned to Ithaca and later helped him kill the suitors. This original work consistently surprises and delights. (Feb.)
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From School Library Journal

Adult/High School—The opening chapter of Mason's imaginative first novel begins with Odysseus, having spent several years after his battles in the Trojan War struggling to find his way home, finally getting to the shoreline of his island kingdom of Ithaca. Instead of finding his wife patiently waiting for his return, he discovers that Penelope has married a fat old man she knew to be impersonating Odysseus. The author follows this humorous twist with a series of Calvino-esque, interlocking short stories and vignettes—some shorter than a page—that sculpt and explode Homer's original plot. Mason's near-deadpan writing style and wild imagination make this a very funny work as readers see events like the blinding of the Cyclops through the eyes of poor Polyphemus, mythical cities transformed into tourist traps, and heroes who are at best clueless and at worst blatantly cruel. This could easily be the territory of campy satire, but Mason moves well beyond that. He destroys and rebuilds Odysseus from the outside in, forcing readers to think about this mythic character in a modern and often-psychological way. While the book is certainly a more entertaining ride for readers who really know Homer's Iliad and Odyssey, it includes some helpful footnotes that are informative and poke fun at the original myths and our constant reinterpretations of them. Although he can at times be too clever for his own good, Mason's novel displays a high level of fun and thought.—Matthew L. Moffett, Pohick Regional Library, Burke, VA
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.