The Lost Books of the Odyssey

A subtle, inventive and moving meditation on the nature of story and what Louis MacNeice calls ‘the drunkenness of things being various’ – John Banville
Dazzling…an ingeniously Borgesian novel that’s witty, playful, moving and tirelessly inventive. Mr. Mason has found a supple, lyrical voice in these pages that captures the spirit of the original Odyssey and at the same time feels freshly contemporary…a stunning and hypnotic novel * New York Times *
Spellbinding. In his versions of these ancient myths Mason twists and jinks, renegotiating the journey to Ithaca with all the guile and trickery of Odysseus himself – Simon Armitage
A small triumph…the invention on display is beguiling…He offers the reader a book of intellectual fireworks that also manages to be wonderfully entertaining * Sunday Times *
Impressive * Guardian *
Mason allows this grand myth of homecoming no beginning or end, just banks of fog, endless mirrors, Borgesian labyrinths…Mason delights in doubles, spirals, conceptual mazes and Moebius strips…he is a wondrous pleasure to read * Los Angeles Times *
Dazzling fiction… Following in the tradition of Borges, Mason brilliantly reveals a hero even more ambiguous than in Homer’s original and an ancient world beset by 21st century uncertainty * Financial Times *
Dazzlingly imaginative modern take on the oldest of fairy tales…always the alternate universe is created with amazing invention, a poet’s gift for a resonant image * Word *
What cannot be stressed enough is the simplicity and control of the verbal texture of the book – Simon Goldhill * Times Literary Supplement *
Playful, gripping and teasingly philosophical without ever being overwhelming, the book reimagines in plain yet often poetic prose many of the Odyssey’s key stories, tantalising the reader with alternative outcomes, unexpected twists and haunting interludes * Sunday Times *

Zachary Mason is the author of the New York Times bestselling novel The Lost Books of the Odyssey and, more recently, Void Star, which has been optioned for film. He lives in California.

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