Description
“I enjoyed Telémachus thoroughly. The opening chapter is a particular delight, and I read it through several times. It flows smoothly, the characters are well drawn and I hope that it enjoys a wide audience.” –Russell Hill, author of Ghost Trout, The Egret and Lord God Bird (Pleasure Boat Studio)
The novel, Telémachus, is told by the son of a famous contemporary American poet and critic whose reputation is that of a foul-mouthed crank, untrustworthy, and yet approachable. The son, Bobby, remembers the summer when he was thirteen, when his parents allowed him to run wild on his own, to raise himself. His unnamed small town can easily be placed in the Pacific Northwest; it is a seaside town and a tourist mecca. Bobby, who has lived there most of his life, trained as an artist in Paris, where his parents brought him as a little boy. Much of the story takes place in the narrator’s childhood; in certain scenes the quality of memory gives parts of the story an atmosphere of ‘dream time’ or legend, even myth. Bobby, a painter of miniature landscapes, narrates his father’s story as it leads to one night in the summer; he also tells the story of his own life beyond that night. His father had returned to the town after a car accident when his passenger was killed. He’s become even more of an emotional cripple than he was prior to the death he caused. On that memorable night, Bobby, the thirteen-year-old, has a long talk with his father, who later drops acid and is stopped by the police. The story ends at dawn.
Michael Daley is the author of a book of essays, Way Out There (Pleasure Boat Studio, 2007), and several books of poems and translations. His most recent collection of poems is Reinhabited: New & Selected Poems ((Dos Madres, 2022). He is a retired teacher, and the publisher of Empty Bowl.
Books by Michael Daley
The Straits
Angels
Amigos
Yes, Five Poems
Original Sin
The Corn Maiden
Horace: Eleven Odes
To Curve
Moonlight in the Redemptive Forest
Alter Mundus by Lucia Gazzino (tr MDaley)
Of a Feather
Born With
True Heresies
Reinhabited: New & Selected Poems
MICHELE SHARPE, Foreword Review (March / April 2022) –
In Michael Daley’s novel Telémachus, a painter seeks to learn about Mac, the father who abandoned him.
This update of the tale of Ulysses’s left-behind son includes a flight from accountability, a heroic cycle, and testimonies from a mentor. In it, Bobby hopes to understand his father’s transformation from a famous poet and literary critic into a man who left his son behind. Across five sections, he receives a revelatory series of letters from Mac’s closest friend, after which other friends chime in like a chorus, their voices distinct as they promise to reveal secrets, often talking in circles, even after Bobby asks, “are we there yet?”
The prose is captivating, with powerful descriptive and reflective passages and striking metaphors, as of “the warehouse of my veins,” used to describe Bobby’s obsession with his “one art,” which is embedded in his body. And the cast of characters describes Mac’s “authoritarian views on art and beauty” well, though sometimes these philosophical discussions are forced. Most often, they ably reveal details of how Mac, a “formidable, feared critic,” gave in to his flaws, leading to a terrible event.
With its deep insights into the human condition, the book takes on universal questions of inheritance and the duties of fathers and sons. Bobby wonders if he’s destined to be like his father. At the same time, he wonders how much attention a father owes to his son, and how much forgiveness a son owes to his father. Piecing together information about his father’s secret remorse, Bobby begins to understand how random events can change people forever.
Drawing on classical motifs, the novel Telémachus follows a man’s search for explanations for his father’s abandonment of him.