Daniel Mendelsohn’s An Odyssey with Nick Flynn

Award-winning memoirist and critic Daniel Mendelsohn’s new book is a deeply moving tale of a father and son’s transformative journey in reading—and reliving—Homer’s Odyssey. When 81-year-old Jay Mendelsohn decides to enroll in the undergraduate Odyssey seminar his son teaches at Bard College, the two find themselves on an adventure as profoundly emotional as it is intellectual. 

​Acclaimed poet, memoirist, and Hudson Valley resident Nick Flynn (Another Bullshit Night in Suck City) joins Bard Charles Ranlett Flint Professor of Humanities Daniel Mendelsohn on stage to discuss the Odyssey’s themes of deception and recognition, marriage and children, the pleasures of travel, and the meaning of home.

Copies of An Odyssey and other titles by both authors will be available for purchase at this event courtesy of Oblong Books & Music.

This event includes an audience Q&A and book signing.

“Beguiling . . . Mendelsohn unwraps layers of timeless meaning in the ancient Greek poem . . . weaves family history and trenchant literary analysis into a luminous whole.” –Publisher's Weekly
 
“Rich, vivid, a blood-warm book . . . a deeply moving tale of a father and son’s transformative journey in reading—and reliving—the Odyssey. Mendelsohn wears his learning lightly yet superbly. What catches you off guard about this memoir is how moving it is: it has many things to say not only about Homer’s epic poem, but about fathers and sons. Revealing and funny . . . Mendelsohn makes Homer’s epic shine in your mind.” –Dwight Garner, The New York Times