When eighty-one-year-old Jay Mendelsohn decided to attend the seminar on the Odyssey that his son, Daniel, would teach at Bard College, it marked the beginning of a voyage that was as deeply emotional as it was spiritual. For Jay, a retired researcher who has learned to see the world through the unyielding lens of a mathematician, this return to the classroom represents his "last chance" to engage with the great literature he neglected in his youth – but above all, to better understand his son.

The months that follow, as the two of them dissect the great work of Homer together – first in the seminar room, where Jay persistently challenges his son's interpretations, and then on a surprise-filled cruise in the Mediterranean, tracing the legendary journeys of Odysseus – hold uncomfortable moments but also prove that Daniel has much to learn.

For Jay's attitude towards both the text and the journey gradually reveals long-hidden secrets, allowing Daniel to finally understand his difficult father. As Mendelsohn leads his memoir toward its heartrending climax, the narrative intricately weaves echoes of the Odyssey itself with its eternally relevant themes: deception and recognition, marriage and children, the joys of travel, and the meaning of home and belonging.

Daniel Mendelsohn, with his multifaceted, revealing narrative, offers us an Odyssey rich in emotional weight and literary insight, a work of profound personal and literary exploration.

"Once again, my favorite classicist combines rigorous research with warm and poignant human feelings. It is for things like this that I love reading." Lee Child

"When Daniel Mendelsohn’s father, a retired mathematician, begins attending his son’s seminar on Homer at Bard College, it sets in motion an odyssey that is as humorous as it is touching. Father and son first journey through the pages of the epic and then on a real ship following the hero's route across the Mediterranean, culminating where all our stories end. This book intertwines the most brilliant literary criticism with the most deeply moving personal memoir. A book that is beautiful and wise." Mary Karr, author of The Liars’ Club

"Many books advocate a return to the classics and highlight their importance for the life of the modern person. Mendelsohn's brilliant book occupies an entirely different realm, which is not merely one, in fact... A book about what one can learn about the other, what one knows of the other, and what one can never know of the other. The author uses a deep reading of the epic to illuminate the mysteries of the human condition and skillfully and sensitively combines textual analysis in the classroom with life lessons outside of it." Kirkus

"Few sons are worthy of their fathers," Athena says somewhere in the Odyssey. Odysseus is one of them. Another is surely Daniel Mendelsohn..." New York Times