Literature

An Odyssey: A Father, A Son, and An Epic
by Daniel Mendelsohn

Monday, March 5
8:00 PM

Book reading and signing, followed by a wine reception

Daniel Mendelsohn’s memoir An Odyssey: A Father, A Son, and An Epic  was named A Best Book of 2017 by NPR, Library Journal, and Newsday. 
   When eighty-one-year-old Jay Mendelsohn enrolls in the undergraduate Odyssey seminar his son Daniel teaches at Bard College, the two find themselves on an adventure as profoundly emotional as it is intellectual. For Jay, a retired scientist, 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. Over the course of this masterful memoir, as the two men explore Homer’s work together, it becomes clear that Daniel has much to learn, too: Jay’s responses to The Odyssey gradually uncover long-buried secrets that allow the son to understand his difficult father at last.   
   Best-selling author Daniel Mendelsohn (The Lost) is a frequent contributor to The New Yorker and The New York Review of Books.

Click here to listen to an interview with Daniel Mendelsohn conducted by NPR's Fresh Air.

Photo Credit: Matt Mendelsohn

THIS EVENT IS FREE AND OPEN TO THE PUBLIC. A RESERVATION IS NOT REQUIRED.