With her poetic memoir, Mary Overly Davis is out to prove Homer is still relevant. Odysseus & Me spans twenty years of her life, beginning with the death of her husband in 2003. 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. While reading The Odyssey, a midnight epiphany led her to recognize that people in her life resembled every Homeric god, goddess, mortal, and monster. 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, Davis takes readers on her own long, eventful trip, telling her tale by turns with biting wit, grace, and tenderness. Aligning the 24 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.

PRAISE FOR Odysseus & Me:

"I have never come across a more transparent memoir. Davis's writing has a dreamy, dissociative quality to it...This book is ethereal yet substantial, and I would not have changed a single word. Davis is a natural writer and poet. Instead of asking what Odysseus would do, some readers may begin asking, 'What would Mary do?'"--Jessica Reed, A Time and A Place Magazine, New York

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By Daniel Cattau Anyone who has spent time in Texas has seen the bumper sticker "WWJD," or "What would Jesus do?" Posing a more unusual question, Mary Overly Davis, an adventurous native Texan, has written a poetic memoir asking, "What would Odysseus do?"

Using free form verse, Davis follows Homer's structure and fills her story with mortals and immortals, ill-suited suitors and feckless friends, personal travails and stories of loss, but her heroine adds to the legend by smoking a joint while golfing, drinking margaritas, cussing when justified, and listening to Patsy Cline.

Her poetry comes from the many vivid descriptions of the natural world: "When primal dawn's light tipped over the eastern hill with her nimble fingers of pink..."

Davis's stated goal is to free herself and adult daughter from the painful past. "When your daughter finds her footing, you will find your true direction."

I re-read Homer's Odyssey before taking on Odysseus & Me, both good refresher courses on the importance of taking our own journeys seriously.

(Cattau was editor of Jonathan Eig's Pulitzer-winning biography King: A Life.)

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Inspired by Homer's Odyssey, Davis tells the story of her life during and after her husband's six-year battle with an ultimately fatal tumor. Friendships come and go, people die, and other challenges happen that make a person who they are. Throughout the book, excerpts and footnotes tell the reader how the memoir correlates to The Odyssey....This is the first book for Davis, who grew up a Texas oil rig brat. "It's kind of weird to be putting my life out there for people to see," she says. "It's a little scary because it's very personal."--Vicky Klukkert, The Daily Star, New York

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An "audacious memoir...Lively, poetic, and powerful."--Buffy Calvert, Andes Gazette, New York