Ithaca: A Novel of Homer's Odyssey by Patrick Dillon

This was kindly sent to me by the publisher but the review is my own.

Homer's Odyssey is one of the all time classics that has been handed down to us from time immemorial. We know that Odysseus was a great king who fought in the Trojan War and proved himself one of the greatest Greek heroes. He spent 16 years trying to reach his beloved wife Penelope. His adventures during that time have inspired countless retellings through the ages entrancing us with his mighty deeds. 

Patrick Dillon's Ithaca is not just another tribute to this great story. His book is a look at the bones behind the myth. It is about the humanity that is left to deal with the aftereffects of war and it's destructive force that history remembers through a golden lens.

In his story you will meet Penelope who watched her husband leave to never return; who has listened to his virtues praised time and again as she raises a son who has never known his father. A man she knows to have feet of clay; waiting to find closure of a kind, waiting day by day as the jackals gather closer to determine her very existence.

Telemachus who without a father there to guide him has not learned how to deal with the strange men who invade his house as guests and abuse the generosity shown them. Unable to protect himself or his mother from their plotting and machinations. The only stories he knows of his father praise him as a wise king but others say he was a manipulator of words. A man who promised his Ithaca so much and took away so much more, leaving families devastated without the support of their sons, brothers, and husbands. Who instead of returning in glory has left the island to suffer in misery, unsure of the future.

Of great men whose names sit beside Odysseus as well known kings and heroes themselves, now grown older and left to a future where the horrors they witnessed and engaged in have left them hollow and alone. As bards sing their feats of heroism they face a life that has lost its vibrancy , each remembering a man who lead them into battle but was also a friend, flawed as he was.

And Odysseus, not the golden hero of legend but an unknown man broken in spirit and body who still weaves a spell with words, unable, scarred, to speak plainly. His return home is not the joyous occasion he had envisioned but a bleak return to a people who do not gather to claim his accolades but accuse him of bringing the anger of the gods on them. His home invaded, his possessions plundered and a son who in his travels to find his father now finds he does not how to receive him.

Along with the numerous others we meet along this story, these characters each pulse with the conflicting emotions that we as living observers will only be to able to empathize with. A powerful nod to the original, Dillon has painted with the vibrancy of authenticity a new look at a tale that has riveted us for so long with his poignancy and refusal to look away from the grit of history and the ability to gild the beauty not with gold but poetry. 

Fantastic read for those historically inclined or devotees of Homer. A definite recommend.