News Ink Books

With her poetic memoir, Mary Overly Davis is out to prove Homer is still relevant. Odysseus & Me spans twenty years of her life, from the death of her husband in 2003 to the present. He died after a six-year battle with a brain tumor, leaving Davis a single mother, inexperienced in courtship, and an uncomfortable inhabitant of the scorching Southern Bible Belt. Although Davis is neither a Homer scholar nor poet, while reading The Odyssey a midnight epiphany led her to recognize that people in her life resembled every Homeric god, goddess, mortal, and monster in the book. After several misfortunes with lovers, friends, and family left her reeling from emotional storms, she found herself asking, ＂What would Odysseus do?＂

Borrowing Homer’s poetic devices--descriptive similes, exhaustive speeches, and all-encompassing repetition-Davis takes readers on her own long, strange trip, telling her tale by turns with biting wit, grace, and tenderness. Aligning all twenty-four books of The Odyssey with outlandish locations, immortal gods and goddesses, mortal characters and experiences of her own, she explores the transient nature of human relationships. It’s a story of heartbreak, love, and coming to terms with one’s innate character. It is also a story about an ordinary life. And some of it is true.

About the Author
After bouncing around Austin, Texas, New Orleans, and New York City for half a century, Mary Overly Davis settled on a small hamlet in the Catskill Mountains of New York to stake her claim. She dabbles in several creative pursuits, works on her golf handicap, walks her dog, and travels. This is her first book.