The list of men who won the Trojan War and the list of men who reached home do not overlap. Homer began there.

Odysseus turns down immortality, has himself lashed to the mast, and after twenty years touches Ithaca — only to be told to shoulder an oar and leave again. Every companion is dead. The peace is bought by erasing memory.

This book follows all twenty-four books of the Odyssey and asks what Homer drew honestly and could not resolve: why we cannot get ourselves home.